I read this book last year for LMRC, but didn't blog about it then. As it is in my Classics Club List, I am writing about it now. This is a novella where the author writes about her experiences as a nurse during the civil war. Alcott fictionalizes her short career as a nurse and gives herself a pseudonym, Tribulation Periwinkle.
Tribulation Periwinkle looking for something to do follows her brother Tom's advice and decides to become a nurse for the union army. She does get an appointment, not at her desired place, but at Hurly-burly hotel which is running as a temporary hospital. She goes on to describe her hardship in reaching the hospital at Washington DC. She then describes her job as a nurse. She was called upon to wash the wounded, immediately on arriving. Though she was embarrassed at first, she masters the art of nursing. Soon, she was promoted as head nurse of the night shift. She calls her patients, her boys and treats them motherly. She tells about her boys and the process of nursing. I was moved particularly by the story of John, a blacksmith from Virginia. Though the horror of war is felt, the narrator's tone alleviates the depressing mood. Nurse Periwinkle was forced to leave the hospital when she falls ill and her father brings her home. In the last chapter, "A postscript," she answers the questions her readers had raised.
In her own words, Hospital sketches showed her what she called "her style", the telling, with heart and humor, of life as she lived it.
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