Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Dec 2020
160 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A darkly shimmering novel of a nurse on the edge of burnout, by "an immensely talented young writer...Her fearlessness renews one's faith in the power of literature" (George Saunders).
Laura is a nurse in a pediatric unit. On long, quiet shifts, she and her colleagues, clad in their different shades of blue, care for sick babies, handling their exquisitely fragile bodies and carefully calibrating the mysterious machines that keep them alive.
Laura may be burnt out. Her hands have been raw from washing as long as she can remember. When she sleeps, she dreams of water; when she wakes, she finds herself lying next to a man who doesn't love her anymore. And there is a strange figure dancing in the corner of her vision, always just beyond her reach.
Dark yet luminous, sensual yet chilling, written with a visceral rhythm and laced with dread, Rest and Be Thankful is an unforgettable novel that confirms Emma Glass as a visionary new voice.
BookBrowse Review
"This autobiographical novel about a couple of days in the life of a beleaguered children's nurse is so drenched with alliteration and imagery that it feels as if Glass wanted to write poetry instead. At a London hospital, Laura cares for babies who will most likely die. There are procedures in place to make this harrowing assignment as easy as possible – all the way down to a tiny reusable coffin and dark towels used to discreetly soak up blood. Laura's relationship with her boyfriend is foundering, and she is so exhausted that she starts to forget some things and hallucinate others. She is haunted by dreams of drowning in a frozen lake. Very little happens in the book, which is more about the lyrical language (stream of consciousness passages, metaphors, and did I mention alliteration?) than the plot. Although the plight of overworked nurses is a perennially important topic, especially during COVID-19, there wasn't enough content here to fill more than a short story. One for fans of Sight by Jessie Greengrass." - Rebecca Foster
Other Reviews
"[T]his glimpse into the world of nursing feels like a true literary rarity. Glass, a nurse herself, takes both standard nursing tropes and revelations about the work and brings them all to shimmering life...A heart-wrenching and poetic look at a profession that deserves more literary attention." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Glass's prose perfectly elicits the restless waking torment that drapes over Laura. The novel is visceral, and readers will keep turning the pages in fascinated dread." - Publishers Weekly
"A visceral and dreamlike literary portrait of a burned-out pediatric nurse working night shifts in a neonatal ward." - USA Today
"In Glass's trademark, lyrical style, it follows a woman on the edge-a night-shift nurse in a pediatric unit who may or may not be seeing things." - LitHub, Most Anticipated Books of 2020
"Atmospheric and eerie, Rest and Be Thankful is full of Glass's poetic observations, and will leave you thoroughly haunted and entranced." - Refinery29
This information about Rest and Be Thankful was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Emma Glass was born in Wales in 1987 and is now based in London, where she writes and works as a children's nurse. Her debut novel Peach was published by Bloomsbury in 2018, has been translated into seven languages and was long-listed for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel Rest and Be Thankful will be published by Bloomsbury in 2020.
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