The story goes that she is on patrol and if she ever encounters a nurse who’s falling asleep on a night shift, she pinches them on the shoulder to prevent them from making the same mistake that she made. The baby died and she wasn’t ever able to forgive herself, so she threw herself off the top of the stairwell of the old nurses’ home and committed suicide. She was on a night shift feeding a baby, she fell asleep and dropped the baby. During that presentation they told us a story about a nurse who worked at the hospital in Victorian times. For the first day or two, you sit in a big lecture theater with all the newly qualified nurses and they tell you about the kind of the kinds of treatments that are done at the hospital and the history of the hospital, which is really interesting. My first job was in a children’s hospital in central London, which is where I’m working again now, actually.

There’s always somebody in the comments that says quit your whining, you are paid to do that job, get on with it.Įmma Glass: Yeah, the inspiration for the story came from a ghost story that I was told as a newly qualified nurse. I read that you were inspired by a ghost story? Her job is intense, her relationship is breaking down, she’s sleep-deprived, and she starts to see weird things. Such intimacy creates empathy for Laura and her fellow nurses, ultimately leaving the reader to ask if they falter, who is to blame?Ĭarrie Mullins: In Rest and Be Thankful, Laura is a pediatric nurse in London.

Glass-whose first novel Peach was long-listed for the International Dylan Thomas Prize-is a practicing nurse, and she describes life at the hospital in rich, almost palpable detail. While it may be clear to the reader that Laura is burnt out, she doesn’t consider taking a break and presses on, dutifully showing up for work and caring for patients even as her grip on reality frays. As time goes on, Laura becomes so worn down that doctor’s instructions mingle with Victorian ghost stories in her sleep-deprived mind. The narrator of this slim and haunting work is Laura, a pediatric nurse at a historic children’s hospital in London who is suffering from insomnia and the emotional strain of her job.

Emma glass rest and be thankful