Collecting Book

Nurse Shelley Decides

Cover illustration by Mort Engle

“Are you after a fat paycheck, Nurse?” The contempt in Dr. Adam Victor’s voice stung Shelley—but it was true she was leaving the hospital to nurse a private patient, and Miriam Bleeker was very rich indeed. The handsome young doctor looked on Shelley as a deserter—and what made it worse was that Dr. Victor had declared war on the whole Bleeker family … and anyone who was with them was his enemy!

GRADE: C+

BEST QUOTES:

“I’m direct. That’s my big problem. I say what I think. Do you know how many people go around never really saying what they think or doing what they want, or being their real selves? IT’s sickening. It really is.”

REVIEW:

Dr. Adam Victor is a tall, hungry-looking young man who yells at all the nurses and “seemed to hate all women in general, nurses in particular and Shelley especially.” Naturally, Nurse Shelley Stevens is drawn to this doctor, with whom she does nothing but fight. “She didn’t know why she allowed him to upset her so much, but he invariably did.” Well, we know why, don’t we, readers! Shelley has a boyfriend, artist Paul deWinters, but though she loves hanging out in his apartment, she’s not as emphatically gung-ho about him. He doesn’t have a lot of ambition, “content to drift along in his easy-going way,” and besides, “there was always something just not quite right. Something was not complete.” This setup is a fairly standard VNRN ploy, telegraphing from the first page what’s going to happen on the last. It bores me.

Shelley lives and works in a mill town, and the mill in question is owned by the Bleeker family. The operating conditions at the mills are poor, and many workers end up in the hospital after accidents that could have been avoided. This is why Dr. Victor hates the Bleekers so much. But Shelley is asked as a special favor by Dr. Harris, an old friend who encouraged her to go to nursing school, to take a job specialing Miriam Bleeker, who is recovering from a stroke. So though she knows it is going to get her into hot water at work—and sure enough, it does—she takes the job. While she’s living in the Bleeker mansion, she begins to run into numerous mysteries: Why won’t the unions advocate for the workers but are content to let the lax conditions go unchallenged? Why is Dr. Harris, who is the medical director for the mills, also disinterested in pushing for better safety for the workers? What is Dr. Harris’ relationship with Mrs. Bleeker? Why has Mr. Bleeker abandoned the family?

About halfway through the book, Dr. Vincent and Shelley meet up at the funeral of a much-beloved patient and end up at dinner together—and kissing afterward. “I don’t understand. I thought we hated each other,” says Shelley the simpleton. After kissing her silly, Dr. Victor insists that Shelley quit working for the Bleekers, or “we’ll forget what just happened.” She’s shocked, but has enough spine to give him a piece of her mind and go back to the Bleekers.

Eventually, the crisis you knew was going to happen actually does: There’s a big explosion at the mill, and many people are seriously injured or killed. The shock of the accident also sends Miriam into a second and fatal heart attack. This saves everyone from the responsibility of agency: With Miriam out of the picture, her son Blake finally has the spine to throw his cheating wife and the corrupt union boss out on their ears, and start running a responsible business, vowing to rebuild the mill according to the best safety standards out there! Mr. Bleeker is returned to the mansion from the nursing home where he’d been hiding out, and Shelley is obliged to return to her job at the hospital. So now all it takes is for Dr. Victor to come striding over to her, grip her painfully by the shoulders, and command, “You’re going to marry me, Shelley. Just as soon as it can be arranged.” And that’s that, all but the nauseating final sentence.

The writing isn’t bad, but the plot is trite, and Nurse Shelley’s capitulation is more than a little disappointing, especially after the way she has stood up for herself all through the book. And we’re left with the question: What did Shelley decide? Seems to me the decision was made for her. If you figure it out, let me in on it.

Small Town Nurse

By Emily Thorne
(pseud. Jeanne Judson), ©1956

Diagnosis: Loneliness

Prescription: Love

As simply as that, Nurse Marian Rutledge prescribed for the people of Bridgetown. There was Marian’s brother Clive, who frequently thought that something—or someone—was missing from his life. And Alberta Thwaits, who withdrew into one small corner of a dusty, rundown mansion. Or Olive Cressett, a timid spinster, whose domineering mother constantly “protected” her from unhappiness—and men. For these, Nurse Marian could make quick diagnoses—and find just the right cures. But for herself, she was as helpless as any other woman in love.

GRADE: A

BEST QUOTES:

“Science ought to be the tool of the doctor. Instead, many modern doctors are the slaves of science. They depend too much on gadgetry and the discoveries of the research chemists. We laugh at the doctors who two hundred years ago and less used to bleed everyone, no matter what their ailment. I dare say bleeding was good for a man suffering from too much roast beef and port wine, but it killed the people with tuberculosis. Just yesterday almost every doctor was giving penicillin to everyone with anything from a head cold to double pneumonia. Anyone with average intelligence can get though medical school. It’s how you apply your knowledge afterward that counts.”

REVIEW:

This book snuck up on me. Part of the disguise was the similarity between its cover and that of Nurse against the Town, which was pretty bad. Also I didn’t recognize the author’s name, which is actually a pen name of one of my favorite VNRN authors, Jeanne Judson (do not miss the delightful Visiting Nurse and City Nurse). So I was gently pulled into its spell, and I got possibly even as far as chapter five before I realized with a start that Small Town Nurse is a true gem.

Nurse Marian Rutledge has returned home to visit her brother Clive, 11 years older than she, who is a widower and GP in—guess—a small town, Bridgetown, Pennsylvania. He’s been a widower for five years, so he has a battle axe of a housekeeper, Mrs. Doughty, who has no first name and feels that every item of furniture should be pushed against a wall, and that every table must have a doily on it. Soon after arriving, Marian is enlisted to help with an auction that will raise funds for the town’s first hospital. And before long, she’s convinced to quit her job—she works in a tuberculosis sanitarium—and sign on as nurse for the other town doc, Thomas Labadie. He’s a no-nonsense sort, nice to children, “but that was probably just professional geniality,” Marian thinks. “As a human being, he left much to be desired—unimaginative and utterly without a saving sense of humor.” For Clive’s part, he thinks Tom “would expect the woman he married to carry her own weight. He ought to marry a girl who would stand up to him, fight for her rights and maybe make him a little ashamed of himself now and then. It would do Tom Labadie good to meet a woman like that.” Now, just who could that woman be? Hmmm.

Tom’s secretary, Alberta Thwaits, is in love with her boss, but he “was no more impressed with her than he was with the files she kept so neatly.” Marian, fearing Alberta will dislike her as a potential rival for the doctor, works hard to win Alberta over by encouraging her to come over and redecorate Clive’s house, much to Mrs. Doughty’s horror. The two quickly become fast friends, and their decorating efforts are fun to watch, as is their work on the auction. There’s a big dance at the auction’s end, when Marian becomes deliriously ill with pneumonia, and the scene is written with such subtle brilliance that it calls to my mind the time David Copperfield gets drunk (the passage is quoted here).

This is the best sort of VNRN, in which the story focuses on the heroine and her life with her friends, her battles and her victories. The characters here are delightful—I haven’t even mentioned the horsey next-door neighbor, Norma Thomas, and her invalid father, Judge Thomas, who dispense humor and wisdom with both hands—and Mrs. Doughty’s replacement, an enormous black woman named Abby Cameron, a genius in the kitchen who is recognized as such and highly respected for her talents. (She does tend to talk in the heavily stylized vernacular of black VNRN domestics, unfortunately, which does make me cringe.) The writing and the story are gentle, with an easy humor that doesn’t really translate to the Best Quotes section well, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. The only drawback to the book is that Marian essentially collapses in a lovesick swoon into the arms of a man she has not much liked up until the last few pages, but I will overlook that one quibble since we foresaw this ending long ago, and Ms. Judson gets it over quick and concludes the book with an amusing little joke. All in all, Small Town Nurseemphatically cements Jeanne Judson’s reputation as one of the very best VNRN authors on my shelf.

Doctor’s Choice

Dr. Bruce Morrow’s beautiful fiancée laughed when she heard the terms of his uncle’s will. “How utterly absurd,” Nina said. “Of course you are not going to bury yourself in a small Southern town and take over the running of a dinky hospital. Dad will build you one right here, if I ask him to.” Bruce knew Nina was right, of course, but he couldn’t help wondering about the pull he felt toward his late uncle’s home town, the hospital he had left him and Nurse Becky Roberts. He was in love with Nina all right, but he couldn’t help wondering why Becky was constantly on his mind and why his resolve to become a rich, big-city society doctor was weakening day by day.

GRADE: B-

BEST QUOTES:

“It’s a long road we travel, you know, and we can’t find happiness if we get on the wrong road.”

REVIEW:

Another not-a-nurse-novel, Doctor’s Choice nonetheless attracted me for its great cover illustration by Robert Maguire. It’s too bad the story inside doesn’t follow through.

Dr. Bruce Morrow is about to marry Nina Neely (say that ten times fast), the spoiled, demanding, and wealthy daughter of his mentor and soon-to-be partner. But out of the blue an uncle, a general practitioner also named Bruce Morrow who works in the quaint Southern town of Maplesville, up and dies. His will leaves Bruce II a large home and captaincy of the local hospital, which Bruce I had endowed. Bruce II is committed to the indolent path he has chosen as society doctor, we are told repeatedly—but we also find out that Bruce holds “a desire long dormant and never fully admitted. Deep within his heart he had always had a desire to be a country doctor.” Furthermore, “he supposed he was in love with Nina,” a supposition that never bodes well for a couple’s long-term success.

Bruce decides to go to Maplesville as a courtesy, to sign away in person his rights to the estate, which will now fall to the uncle’s nurse, 24-year-old Becky Reynolds, who conveniently lives next door. He’s only planning to spend a day, but as it happens, he witnesses the car accident in which the perpetrator and victim is the spoiled, demanding, and wealthy daughter of the crooked mayor of Maplesville. Cheryl’s arm is crushed, and all the local doctors are voting for just lopping it off, but Cheryl would rather die than lose an arm. Bruce confesses that he’d assisted Dr. Neely in saving an arm in a similar case back home, so his 24-hour stay is dragged out to a couple of weeks while he doctors Cheryl and the other former patients of his uncle, with his trusty Nurse Becky at his side.

And you are not going to guess what happens!!! Bruce falls in love with Becky! But he’s one of those dopey types who thinks that he must go through with an unsatisfying career and marriage, and never mind that “the thought of a lifetime with a girl like Nina was very disturbing.” Though he finds “a richness, a contentment, a feeling of well-being here that he did not think he would find elsewhere,” “his sense of integrity would not let him” back out: “He had promised Dr. Neely; he was engaged to Nina; he couldn’t walk out and say he had changed his mind.” Will he come to his senses before book’s end? The tension about killed me!!!

Well, that was a little snarky, but it’s an irritating question to hang a book on. And you’ll never guess how it turns out!!! So OK, you will, and there’s no precipitating event or revelation that brings on Bruce’s complete about-face; he just walks into Dr. Neely’s office and blurts out the truth, and Dr. Neely just says, “If that’s what you want, don’t let anyone change your mind.” So he doesn’t even have to fight for what he wants, and there are no repercussions—apart from a bitter scene with Nina—that keep him from his intended career and bride. While the book isn’t badly written, and I mostly enjoyed the characters (although there is one bizarre detour in which Becky masquerades as someone else for a bit before she is found out, and this is never satisfactorily explained), in the end I was annoyed by both the book’s central “problem” and its resolution. If Bruce makes the right choice in the end by becoming a country practitioner, the choice you should make is to leave this one on the shelf.

Jennifer James, R.N.

Cover illustration by M. Hooks

Nestled deep in the California hills was a hospital so strange, so unique that only a handful of people knew of its existence, let alone its mysterious mission. Through its antiseptic corridors moved the shadiest of characters—bullet-ridden gangsters, suicidal actresses, punch-drunk pugs—people who could not stand the all-revealing daylight of public exposure. A truly odd assortment of bedfellows. Here, under the most modern and efficient conditions, beneath the secretive cloak of midnight, life-saving operations were performed by a team of highly skilled, dedicated men and women. Jennifer James, Registered Nurse, was one of them. Some people will condemn her for it. Others will come to her defense. But no one will be indifferent to her, or to the doctor she loved—the man she had no right to want.

GRADE: B

BEST QUOTES:

“Bye, sweetie, and I hate you because you’re so damn attractive.”

“Now that’s the epitome of our gentle era. Booze through a straw. Bombs from the bomb bays, missiles from the pads, rockets and men in orbit, atoms from the smashers and booze through a straw.”

“Would you like to go down by the river? There are benches, and I promise to behave outrageously.”

“California now has something to talk about whenever the subject of beauty is brought up.”

“She’s your wife. You should be able to handle her or you shouldn’t have married her.”

“You are much too attractive to worry.”

REVIEW:

Jennifer James, R.N., is wholly unique among the more than 200 nurse heroines I have met to date: Right off the bat, right there on page 16, she sleeps with a married man she had admired but barely known when she worked with him years ago. The man in question, Dr. Rafferty Corbett, is a surgeon at Manhattan’s West Side General, but now he is a rude, sloppy drunk, babbling on about his Eskimo pie of a wife at the hospital’s annual ball. She takes him outside for some fresh air and he all but passes out, so she takes him to her room in the nurse’s dormitory. Big mistake. In his gratitude for her assistance, he forces her down and tears off her dress. She responds as women in VNRNs usually do when they are being assaulted, namely, “she found herself clinging to him instead, pulling him closer.” Next thing you know, she’s picking up her underwear off the floor and rushing to the OR, where she is head surgical nurse, for an emergency surgery.

There she works on a man who has been assaulted to the brink of death by the henchmen of gangster Sydney Delgado. The man, a former associate of Sydney’s, was about to sing to the police about Sydney’s illicit activities, but now he’s fighting for his life with just Jennifer James, R.N., between him and the grim reaper. But there’s this mean police detective, who wants the patient to wake up and talk before his imminent death. Jennifer, who has orders to keep the man sedated lest his shredded spleen start hemorrhaging, dopes the patient with morphine even as the detective is rushing to the hospital administrator to make Jennifer keep the man alert. Her efforts come to no avail and the patient dies, and now there is hell to pay. Jennifer is fired from her job for obeying the doctor’s orders and not the detective’s, and is blacklisted from every job in town—except for one, working for an abortionist, which she turns down, so we know she has some morals.

Then she gets a phone call from Raff. He’s in California, having left his wife, and he wants her to take a job at the hospital where he works. Next thing you know, she’s at a very upscale medical facility in the Los Angeles hills. The patients are glamorous movie stars, dirt-poor Mexican immigrants, anyone who needs care—including a number of shady types with suspicious wounds; Jennifer’s first surgery upon arriving is assisting Raff in removing a bullet from a seedy fellow who repays her by grabbing her breast, and only Raff’s quick intervention with a right cross to the jaw preserves her relative modesty.

It turns out that the hospital is financed by Sydney, who after watching his mother die of cancer, impoverished and without proper treatment, swore that he would help others in the same situation—apparently the only act of goodness he has ever committed. So all these nice poor people get top-notch care, but the down side is that Jennifer and RAff have to minister to any of Sydney’s associates who might need medical attention. But to have a job again, and to work alongside Raff—and to open her door to him at night—is all Jennifer needs, so she accepts the good with the bad. And the bad includes another assault, this time a near-rape—she is again saved by Raff, whose timing really is uncanny—and the arrival of Sydney himself, who has survived a plane crash and crawled across the California desert to the hospital. Oh, and Raff’s wife turns up as well, and a Hollywood gossip columnist, both of whom are threatening to expose Jennifer and Raff as adulterers as well as the hospital’s slimy underbelly.

It seems black for everyone concerned: How can Raff shake off his wife and the gossip columnist, and persuade Sydney to continue funding the hospital, which, after his first-hand experience as a patient, he now regards as an unworthy medical facility staffed by quacks? (He may have a point there; shortly after his arrival, he is determined to have metastatic lung cancer and less than two weeks to live, and though he is even given radiation treatment, he is never informed of his diagnosis lest he freak out and pull the plug on the hospital’s endowment trust.)

Not to worry, in the event that you are: All is resolved when the hospital handyman (a very dignified Mexican) essentially murders Sydney by brutally revealing his illness to him, the shock of which sends Sydney into a coma from which he never recovers, and also by a bit of dirt that Jennifer and Raff fortuitously uncover on Mrs. Raff and Mr. Columnist. It isn’t really a satisfying ending; I had hoped that someone might literally put an end to Sydney, which would have made for a more thought-provoking conclusion to the hospital’s woes, and the way in which Mrs. Raff is dispatched seemed too facile. But on the whole it’s an enjoyable book, even if at the same time it doesn’t have all that much to recommend it. The writing is pleasant and brisk, and the surgeries are well and accurately described, but the plot just aren’t that enticing. I also wasn’t really impressed with Raff, who goes around either threatening to hit everyone or actually doing so, and his initial assault on Jennifer wasn’t too nice, either, even if she did succumb to his charms. It’s an odd addition to the VNRN genre and for that reason alone perhaps worth reading, but otherwise you won’t find that Jennifer James has much to offer outside the bedroom or the OR.