Nearly 250 people attended the County of Brant Public Library’s One Book, One Brant 20th anniversary event on Sunday, April 6, 2025.
One Book, One Brant is an annual County-wide reading event celebrating Canadian literature. Every year, the library chooses a book from a Canadian author and encourages the community to read the book together, and this year’s selection was Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars.
Donoghue, who is known for novels such as Room, The Wonder, Akin, and Frog Music, is an Irish Canadian novelist, screenwriter, playwright and literary historian, and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the program, Donoghue herself made the trip to Paris to speak about The Pull of the Stars with her dedicated fans.
The book takes place over three days in Dublin, Ireland, in 1918, and follows three women working in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu.
During the event, Emma Johnston, who handles program and outreach services with the library, interviewed Donoghue about the inspiration behind the plot of the book, the meaning behind the title, and the author’s historical research for the book, as well as how it relates to more current issues like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking about why she chose to set the novel over three days, Donoghue said she was inspired by a real life volunteer, and how high-pressure environments can form various relationships.
“There was a volunteer I read about in America who signed up to help in a hospital. She helped all week, caught the flu herself and died of it. Apparently, on her deathbed, she said ‘this was the best week of my life,’ and I was just so moved by her spirit,” recalled the author. “…It may seem almost unrealistic that total strangers could come to mean so much to each other in a mere three days, but similar to how the kind of bonding among men in war can happen, in an intense enough situation.. three days is a lifetime; three days could be a kind of exhilarating blooming of a relationship, and a blooming of a new sense of self.”
Following the discussion, Johnston and Donoghue began discussing the author’s launch of her newest book The Paris Express.
The historical fiction novel was based on the real life 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station, and takes place over just one day during a train ride from Normandy to Paris.
Donoghue said the inspiration for the novel stemmed from an extended-stay in Paris, France. She said while looking for a three bedroom apartment for herself, her partner and her children, the only unit available in the area was in the neighbourhood of Montparnasse.
“It’s not particularly touristy, so I Googled, ‘Montparnasse history,’ and this image appeared on the screen multiple times,” recalled Donoghue. “It was an image of a gigantic steam train falling out of a window, dangling vertically like a toy. …Looking at that picture, I thought, how can I write a novel about this?”
Johnston later asked the author about the characters of the book, noting the differences between the first, second and third class passengers, and how she came up with them.
“I started with the people I knew were on the train. We have a crew of four named men who worked for the railway company, and then there were a handful of passengers who we knew were on the train, because they were ‘bigwigs,’” replied Donoghue. “I had almost 40 articles to draw on from the French press at the time, and they mentioned that three different members of parliament were on the train that day.”
She continued to say that having known there were around 100 people on the train, she figured she could either make up the rest of the characters, or continue to draw inspiration from real life.
“Paris was such an interesting city. People were drawn to Paris as the hub of the French Empire, so I knew there would be Cambodians and Algerians. I knew there would be people from the countryside who wanted to live in the big city, I knew there scientists and students, and I knew there’d be expats,” said Donoghue. “…So I thought, well, with all these real people to choose from, maybe I should bring real people onto the train, because they might have been on it. So I said to myself, ‘if they were living in the Paris area in 1895 they could have been on my train.’”
After the interview about the novels, Johnston took the opportunity to ask a bit more about the author’s writing style, her travels, as well as the plays she’s written, before she opened the floor for the audience to ask a few questions about The Pull of the Stars.
As the event wrapped up, attendees were invited to get in line to have their copies of Donoghue’s work signed.
Laura Merucci, who traveled three hours from Detroit to Paris, had Donoghue sign six of her various works.
When asked what she thought about the event, Merucci said she was happy to have taken the trip, and that she was surprised about how much historical research went into The Pull of the Stars.
“That’s probably one of my favourite books of hers and I was surprised with how much historical research was put into it,” she said. “I loved all the historical medical detail she added to not only this book, but some of her others as well like The Wonder and Frog Music too. I was actually going to ask her if she had a background in medicine because she does such a great job.”
Merucci added, “it was totally worth the drive and I hope I can come out to this event next year too.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
