Nightingale

Inspired by the life of Florence Nightingale, this literary gem is part historical fiction, part ghost story, and utterly original.

Susan's Review

Florence Nightingale, an innovative statistician, researcher and social reformer whose work revolutionised health care and nursing, is probably most well known as the Lady with the Lamp. The name refers to her nightly walks with a lamp to check on the wounded soldiers in a military hospital in Scutari, Turkey, during the Crimean War. Adding to the long list of books – works of fiction, biographies and academic tomes - about this iconic woman is Australian writer Laura Elvery’s wonderful debut novel, Nightingale. Despite its title, however, Elvery’s novel deals not only with that famous historical figure but also with two fictional characters: Jean Frawley, a nurse, and Silas Bradley, a soldier. 

Oscillating between three different time frames before, during and after the Crimean War, and alternating the perspectives of the three characters, Nightingale is an exquisitely written account of bodily and psychological damage and the need for love and connection. The novel begins with Nightingale, decades after her work in Turkey: an old woman whose thoughts are befuddled by memories of a happy childhood, the confronting nature of her work as a nurse during the war, and a half-awareness of her helplessly bedridden state. The arrival of a rare visitor named Silas confuses her further; nor is the reader certain whether the man is physically real or a ghost from the Nightingale’s past. Silas’s urgent questions about the whereabouts of a woman called Jean further complicate a sense of the present. As the novel unfolds, the mysteries of identity are slowly revealed, including the profoundly ambiguous consequences of Jean’s attempt to save Silas’s life.

The novel’s evocation of the thoughts and feelings of three emotionally damaged people sometimes takes on a hallucinatory quality; at other times there is fleeing joy, a sense of resilience, and the pride in one’s work. The fragmented nature of the characters’ lives is enacted through the use of relatively short sections which show Elvery’s skills as an acclaimed short story writer: the combination of brevity and resonance, and the power of ‘the unsaid.’ The use of alternating perspectives adds to the sense of disconnection between the three characters, while at the same time honouring the value of women who tend to the ill and the dying. 

Nightingale is a formally unconventional, always engaging and deeply moving series of narratives about one of the most tumultuous times in British history. It’s one of the best Australian literary novels I’ve read for some time.

Publisher Review

Inspired by the life of Florence Nightingale, this literary gem is part historical fiction, part ghost story, and utterly original

Mayfair, 1910. At the age of ninety, Florence Nightingale is frail and no longer of sound mind. After a storied career as a nurse, writer and statistician, she now leads a reclusive existence. One summer evening she is astonished to receive a visitor- a young man named Silas Bradley, who claims to have met her during the Crimean War fifty-five years ago. But how can this be? And how does the elusive Jean Frawley connect their two lives?

In this eagerly anticipated novel, Laura Elvery shows why she is one of the most lauded writers of her generation. Nightingale is a luminous tale of faith and love, bravery and care, and the vitality of women's work.