BOOK REVIEW: Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard

I remember reading, as a kid, those biographies for middle schoolers of important women in history: Jane Addams, Clara Barton, and, of course, Florence Nightingale. The name Florence Nightingale is particularly enduring, and I’ve read other novels where she is sometimes a prominent figure and sometimes mentioned off-handedly. But what they all had in common was the focus on or recognition of her service in the Crimean War and the way she made nursing a respectable occupation for women. A profession.

Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard digs deeper. This biographical novel tells a more nuanced and complete story of the life of the woman. Beginning in her childhood, one of two daughters born into wealth and privilege, Florence felt called by God to help the less fortunate. Her own comfort distressed her. Watching the way her mother (and others) dispensed insufficient charity made her yearn to do more.

The novel takes us through Florence’s early years and the struggles she underwent in order to be allowed to learn nursing, to which she then added an innate ability for administration and the social status to forge connections in high political circles. A lot went into the shaping of Florence Nightingale before she ever sailed off to Scutari.

The novel shows how she found purpose in Crimea, which gave her the strength to work relentlessly and show unceasing compassion for the suffering soldiers. The book dives deep into the horrors of the war compounded by the inefficiencies of the War Department and the resistance of some of the military doctors who didn’t want women around. 

Told as a series of vignettes, the novel beautifully expands on the life story of Florence Nightingale, so that we see her not only as the legendary heroine we recognize, but as a complicated, intelligent, three-dimensional woman, who sacrificed much to answer God’s call.