The Quintland
Sisters is a fascinating look into the lives of Canada’s famous Dionne quintuplets. Born in the midst of the great depression,
the Dionne quintuplets soon became a public obsession that lifted the public’s
spirits during trying times. But at what
cost to the girls?
Emma
Trimpany is a seventeen-year-old local girl who attends the birth of the Dionne
quintuplets with the midwife to learn the trade. Madame Dionne did not know she would have five
babies and Emma did not realize she was now a part of an extraordinary event. As she works to keep the five tiny infants
alive, she becomes a caregiver through the years as the Canadian government
takes them from their parents and raises them in a nursery across the street
where they are put on the display for tourists.
Emma keeps a diary of the strange events and also draws the girls as
they grow. Does the family or the government
have the best interest in the girls at heart?
Who should raise the girls?
Emma
was born with a birthmark on her face and is trying to find her place in the
world. Her parents do not want her to
pursue her art, but instead want her to find steady employment during the great
depression. Emma loves the girls, but
she also wants romance in her life. Will Emma be able to find love and her
place in the world?
I had
heard of the Dionne quintuplets, but I learned a lot in this novel, which
overall, made me sad. The story ends
with their visit to the queen as children and has a bit of a fast forward to
when they are in their twenties. The novel
left me thirsting for more information on the girls. Luckily at the end of the novel, Wood had an
excellent author’s note and question and answer section that gave more
information on the them. I was sad to
hear that there isn’t much left when you visit where they grew up in northern
Ontario. I was also intrigued that they
were five identical babies as I didn’t realize that before. There still has not been a set of identical quintuplets
that has made it to adulthood besides the Dionnes, which is an amazing feat.
I
enjoyed Emma’s story. I really liked the
story of a woman trying to find her place in the world in the 1930’s. There were harsh realities of that time that
were hard to live through.
The
novel is told as Emma’s first-person diary entries with news articles (mostly
real, some edited) interspersed throughout the entries to give a fuller
account. Emma is a fictional person in a
real world, but her story itself was quite tragic. I got to the end and had to just sit in quiet
for awhile I was so distressed.
Overall,
The Quintland Sisters is a fascinating look into tragic story of the Dionne
Quintuplets and the life of women in the 1930’s.
Book
Source: Review Copy from William Morrow
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About The Quintland Sisters
• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (March 5, 2019)
"A historical novel that will enthrall you... I was utterly captivated..." — Joanna Goodman, author of The Home for Unwanted Girls
For fans of
Sold on a Monday or
The Home for Unwanted Girls,Shelley Wood's novel tells the story of the Dionne Quintuplets, the world's first identical quintuplets to survive birth, told from the perspective of a midwife in training who helps bring them into the world.
Reluctant midwife Emma Trimpany is just 17 when she assists at the harrowing birth of the Dionne quintuplets: five tiny miracles born to French farmers in hardscrabble Northern Ontario in 1934. Emma cares for them through their perilous first days and when the government decides to remove the babies from their francophone parents, making them wards of the British king, Emma signs on as their nurse.
Over 6,000 daily visitors come to ogle the identical “Quints” playing in their custom-built playground; at the height of the Great Depression, the tourism and advertising dollars pour in. While the rest of the world delights in their sameness, Emma sees each girl as unique: Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Émilie. With her quirky eye for detail, Emma records every strange twist of events in her private journals.
As the fight over custody and revenues turns increasingly explosive, Emma is torn between the fishbowl sanctuary of Quintland and the wider world, now teetering on the brink of war. Steeped in research,
The Quintland Sisters is a novel of love, heartache, resilience, and enduring sisterhood—a fictional, coming-of-age story bound up in one of the strangest true tales of the past century..
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About Shelley Wood
Shelley Wood is a writer, journalist, and editor. Her work has appeared in the
New Quarterly, Room, the
Antigonish Review, Causeway Lit, and the
Globe and Mail (UK). Born and raised in Vancouver, she has lived in Montreal, Cape Town, and the Middle East, and now has a home, a man, and a dog in British Columbia, Canada.
Find out more about Shelley at her
website, and connect with her on
Facebook,
Instagram, and
Twitter.