“In childhood, Lib remembered, family seemed as necessary and inescapable as a ring of mountains.” In The Wonder, it becomes the nurse’s duty to help her ward make that escape. Crucially, she also comes to understand how her surveillance is contributing to Anna’s decline The sketchy members of Anna’s family and the community can no longer abet the situation once Lib is in situ. Thematically there are parallels but the main difference with this story is that no-one is keeping Anna captive except herself.Ī far more complex character than Jack, Anna is physically a child but mentally an adult, and a very 19th century Irish one at that, in her warped understanding of sacrifice and penance.Īs the mystery unravels, Lib realises the real question is “not how a child might commit such a fraud, but why”. With much of the novel unfolding in a confined space as an adult watches over a child, comparisons have been made to Donoghue’s Booker shortlisted novel Room. A romantic subplot with Dublin journalist William Byrne brings overtones of Austen - and a similarly neat ending - as Lib comes to realise she is the only one who can save Anna from the “wonder” of her calling. The novel is as much about Lib’s journey as it is about Anna’s decline. While Lib’s condescension could grate with readers in the hands of a lesser author, Donoghue gives us a likeable and no-nonsense narrator whose past has left her ruthless but not heartless. Other Irish customs are also scrutinised, from the resigned disposition of the people to the conviction that the fairies are behind Anna’s behaviour. This comes to life through Lib’s overt prejudice: “Clearly the Irish Midlands were a depression where wet pooled, the little circle in a saucer.” She is equally cutting on Catholicism, noting of her fellow sentry Sister Michael, “Strange how they took the names of male saints, as if giving up womanhood itself”. In The Wonder she depicts a country barely back on its feet after years of death and starvation. With a PhD in history from Cambridge, much of Donoghue’s back catalogue is in the historical fiction genre. Fans of the Irish-Canadian author will not be surprised by this.

Set seven years after the Great Hunger, Anna’s actions take on historical significance. What makes Donoghue’s novel so compelling is not just the skilfully paced mystery, but the choice of post-Famine Ireland as a backdrop. Along the way, there are perhaps too many leading questions and explaining of Anna’s behaviour, but given Lib’s role they are forgivable.

Initially acting as watchman, Lib comes to care for her patient and works furiously in the book’s final quarter to see if she can save her. These symptoms are noted with forensic accuracy by an English nurse, Lib Wright, a former Nightingale who has been dispatched to Ireland to determine whether Anna is a fraud or a marvel.

The wonder synopsis emma donoghue