Nursing School wasn’t supposed to be this hard…
“A captivating journey through a unique historical setting” (Goodreads)
“I don’t think I’ve ever read a book so quickly or dreaded it ending as much as this one.” (Amazon)
“I had no idea that so many Canadians died of TB, and how horrifying the treatments were for the severe cases.” (Librarything)
Spit & Polish
DA Brown
Ruth was delighted when she was accepted into the nursing school at Kingston General Hospital. But she didn’t realize how challenging it would be. She quickly finds her skills aren’t up to snuff and is sent to build them up as an aide at the local tuberculosis sanatorium.
It’s 1946, and when Ruth arrives, she is immediately surrounded by crowds of wounded and infected soldiers, women, and children.
Ruth must find her way among the dying, depressed, and too-friendly patients, managing demanding doctors and a jealous mentor, without being sent home or infected. Can she impress her seniors and be readmitted to the nursing program she so wants?
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-7387998-9-3
eBook: ISBN 978-1-7380743-0-3
eBook and paperbacks at the following links: https://books2read.com/u/49687M
Can be ordered from most bookstores. In Canada, for stores near you that can order the book, go to 49th Shelf and click Shop Local.
Also available from Chapters-Indigo online, and Dartmouth Book Exchange, or order directly from Somewhat Grumpy Press.
Connect with DA Brown and read more of her writing on various subjects at https://dorothyanneb.com/
Spit and Polish Reviews
Submitted Reviews | Submit a Review
Reviews may contain spoilers. Submitted reviews may have been edited for length and clarity.
Click the triangle to view the full review.
Spit and Polish, the title of Dorothyanne Brown’s excellent second novel, has a much deeper meaning than the common expression suggests. The spit it refers to is sputum infected by a persistent and pernicious bacteria. Tuberculosis, TB, is still around today, but was at a peak in the time and the place that the novel is set, Kingston, Ontario, at the end of WW2.
Men are returning home, to hospital and sanitoriums, legless, lungless – a case of the cure being worse than the ailment, a bad lung removed in hopes the other would flourish. Some of the things doctors did in the cause of medical science are unthinkable today. The men were missing many parts of their brains and souls…sneezing and coughing their discontent into spit trays held for them by a new breed of woman.
Women like Ruth McLean, determined to escape from the dull, repetitive life in rural Canada, to have a career, new opportunities to experience the world away from the sheltering and suffocating roof of the family home. For Ruth, this home consists of an overbearing father and a mother who can’t control the size of her family and the dozens of diapers she has to deal with daily. Ruth wants none of this and trades it for knuckle-roughing chores as a trainee nurse.
Spit and Polish is a both credible work of fiction, with a number of singular stories spun out along the fictional fabric, and history: the novel draws on Canada’s medical and social history of the early part of the nineteenth century. For those who like facts in their fiction, Spit and Polish has a healthy bibliography that provides a solid background to the fictional tale. Dorothyanne Brown knows her stuff. She’s a retired nurse with obvious affection for and knowledge of her profession.
Without this dark background, Spit and Polish might read as a boy meets girl, nurse meets soldiers, sort of novel. Romance springs up in the midst of grim and gruesome hospital lives. Groups of young people find friendship in the wards, and legless or otherwise, in playing soccer to boost morale. Ruth has dreamed of becoming a nurse, but her skills aren’t good enough and she runs the risk of failing to advance in the fall. She can’t bear the thought of returning home to a critical father and a clothesline full of diapers.
Brown plans to write a series of these books with Ruth at different times through her career.
Win, win.
Hilary MacLeod, author of Revenge of the Lobster Lover, and other Shores Mysteries novels.
Somewhat Grumpy Press 