Nurse Annette

By Rebecca Marsh 
(pseud. William Neubauer), ©1962

An overturned convertible—an overindulged scion of the prominent Hauser family lying injured. Nurse Annette saved his life and earned first the gratitude and then the wrath of his powerful father. Annette found herself involved in a bitter conflict in which lives as well as principles were at stake.

GRADE: A-

BEST QUOTES:
“I’ve read somewhere that yogurt people marry young, have a dozen children and live to dandle great-grandchildren.”

“‘When you’re married,’ Jenny King told her daughter, ‘always serve the brute his first cup of coffee before he dresses. It’s astonishing how sweet husbands can be after they’ve had their first cup of coffee.’”

“My, the poor sort of men we’re breeding these days. True, several of his burns must have  been painful, and his ankle must have pained him some. But the burns weren’t major, and he actually had no broken bones. So help me, ma’am, those screams and the final swoon were definitely unjustified and unmanly.”

“You know how it is. Boys like girls, and single girls dream of being married.”

“You have to be nasty mean and tough to cope with Emergency.”

REVIEW
William Neubauer has written three other nurse novels reviewed in this blog, Nurse of Ward B, Nurse Greer, and Police Nurse.  Nurse Annette is definitely in keeping with these books: the political intrigue of PN, the two-nurses-vying-for-the-top-job of NWB, the interfering newspaper editor of NG, and the confusing plotting of all three. Here Nurse Annette King, the bestest nurse you could ever hope to meet, is in line to be head of the visiting nurses division (sound familiar?) of Southworth Memorial Hospital located in, I think, Los Angeles, when she happens upon a car crash in which wealthy ne’er-do-well Dane Hauser is injured. She saves his life in superhero fashion: “What you did, King, was charge along in the finest tradition of the nursing service. You actually hoisted up the rear end of that Jaguar and shoved Dane Hauser clear with your foot. Your skirt caught fire. Were you dismayed? Nope. You wallowed it out in one of the irrigation puddles, and then you went to work on your patient.” And after she’d stabilized him, she flew him to Southworth Memorial in her invisible jet.

Her heroic deed, however, brings her nothing but trouble. The question of whether Dane had been entirely sober at the time of the crash is discussed in the papers, and as the nurse on the spot, her testimony is sought by all. Dr. Gramm, the head of the hospital, accepts more than $100,000 worth of iron lungs to keep mum on the subject from Dane’s dear old dad, Ludwig Hauser, who has Big Plans for Dane that the young man clearly isn’t too interested in. Annette, having literally saved his life once already, now sets out to save it metaphorically by freeing him from Dad’s clutches and finding him a spine as well as two feet to stand on. But because she refuses to kneel at Ludwig’s feet, she is passed over for promotion and the job goes to Ruth Larrabee, a very capable nurse but a terrible manager. Annette is forced out of her job by Ruth, and the other nurses revolt. Annette drops a dime to the newspaper editor who started the whole crisis with his editorial speculations and tells him she’s out of a job, but a top surgeon who—like every other medical professional in town—has been an admirer of Annette’s, offers her a job in his office, which she accepts.

Dane, finding himself increasingly sway to Annette’s guidance, soon figures out which branch of Daddy’s huge company suits him best. He lets Dad know that he’s not going to be the ambassador Dad had hoped for but instead a contractor—and now he wants to marry Annette. But out of the blue Dr. Lyon tells Annette that he loves her, and eventually she comes around to the idea of him as a husband—because no one can ever just date for a while.

One of the  best things about this book is our heroine, Annette, and you know damn well that it’s altogether too rare an occasion when we can say that. Annette is tough, smart, hard-working, kind, shrewd, and a great nurse. It’s equally rare that her main beau admires all these qualities and has no interest in transforming her into a meek housewife with a high likelihood of developing chemical dependence: “What he liked best about her in that moment was the unafraid gleam in her big blue eyes. Although it was clear she realized it would be a tough job, it was also clear that she was tempted to try it. ‘Honey,’ he advised, ‘always get the whole ball of wax whenever you can get it. If it’s work you like and think you can do, try it.’” A VNRN fiancé who is encouraging his girlfriend to work instead of insisting that she quit her job? I’m swooning!

Another great aspect of the book is its sense of humor, which is wry, starts out strong, and never quits. There on the opening page, Annette’s father is razzing her mother about how slow breakfast is in arriving at the table. “Say more,” Mom responds. “I haven’t had a brawl in years.” One problem with the book are its supporting characters, who just don’t have much life to them; Dane, who is supposed to have this major breakthrough, is just a cardboard figure, as is Annette’s love interest, Dr. Lyon. Another is that, à la Police Nurse, the political intrigue is initially hard to follow—but helpfully, about halfway through, Dane Hauser’s attorney sums it up for the lad, so the audience has the chance to catch up, too. But these slights are not particularly onerous, and with writing this good, it is no trouble at all to overlook them.

Nurse of the Crossroads

Colleen L. Reece, ©1977

The assignment that reporter Sam Reynolds had been given seemed easy enough: find out about Dr. David Mackenzie; find out what gave him his own special brand of faith. And so Sam left Portland for the small towns around LaGrande, to discover new people and a way of life he had never known existed. Lovely Amber Mackenzie, a nurse, had been alone since her father’s death. But she was carrying on with the work he had  begun—the small Crossroads Clinic was still open; Amber still journeyed into the canyons and mountains to help people in need. Amber’s gentle ways earned her the love of all who knew her and believed in her father’s ideals, and Sam quickly fell under her spell. Sam’s assignment to learn about Dr. Mackenzie turned into something more, as the young man decided to learn about himself, too. And Sam’s presence caused Amber some serious thinking, also. Although she had known and loved Dr. Robert Meacham for years, she felt unsure of herself, unready for marriage. Perhaps with Sam …

GRADE: C-

BEST QUOTES:

“What chance had she, Amber, against such a doll-like creature?”

“Woman, I won’t rest until you’re my meek, obedient, humble bride.”

“While Robert is marrying a nurse, I think he probably also hopes he’s marrying a woman, not a machine.”

REVIEW:

The story begins from the point of cynical newspaper reporter Sam Reynolds, who was “raised in a poor family, clawing his way out of the slums.” His editor, Don Baker, who—get this—lives in a mansion (no newspaper editor outside of a major city could possibly afford a mansion these days, and in fact might qualify for food stamps)—is obsessed with now-deceased college chum David Mackenzie, who quit his superlative career at Portland Memorial to take up the life of a rural GP in eastern Oregon. Don is yearning for deeper meaning, and thinks David had found it: He “stood without wavering for what he believed. I’ve got to know whether David’s beliefs were real!” He fears David actually resigned to head off a big scandal, but he “must know what it was that kept David Mackenzie going.”

So he sends Sam on a spiritual cum journalistic quest. Sam heads east, making a beeline for David’s gravestone, which states that David had  “accepted the Crossroads Calling.” This Calling is painted as a mystical quest, for some reason, and Sam, and many other characters in the book, pursues it for the duration. After a stop at the cemetery, Sam meets David’s daughter Amber, who is a nurse and continues the work of the Crossroads Clinic. The story shifts mostly to her point of view, and she develops a crush on Sam, while gently resisting VNRN staple doctor-who-loves-nurse-but-isn’t-loved-in-return Robert Meacham. We spend a lot of time on this old saw, and visiting Amber’s patients, and various adventures including the time Amber catches the 14-year-old boy who’s broken into the drug cabinet to steal—aspirin! Tee hee!

The worst part about this book is how it hangs most of its raison d’être on the mystery of David Mackenzie—which Amber spills 100 pages before the end, ending the suspense much too early—namely that David Mackenzie had unknowingly sent a drunk intern to care for a seriously injured burn victim and, checking later, had found the intern passed out in a chair and the patient dead. The patient would have died anyway, we’re told, but Dr. Mackenzie covered for the intern and resigned, though the resignation is completely unjustified, as if every doctor resigned after the expected death of a patient, no one would be practicing medicine. The intern goes on to become a very successful and famous doctor, and Dr. Mackenzie slinks off to LaGrande to practice in his humble clinic.

Somehow all this is supposed to make Dr. Mackenzie even more of a saint, but to me needlessly falling on his sword just makes him look like a self-absorbed, sanctimonious jerk. Even worse, we’re given a lame poem he’d written—again and again this poem is quoted—in which the narrator chose a path at a crossroads that leads away from fame and fortune but toward “the right way, to happiness … and God.” The ostensible point being that you should do whatever you can to help other people. It’s a reasonable point, though it’s not clear why a famous and successful doctor is not helping people; rather you have an opportunity to help more people if you have a wider reach. Furthermore, it’s not clear why this philosophy translates into a religion, and why this makes Dr. Mackenzie so much saintlier than everyone else for having followed it, when others, including his daughter and Dr. Meacham, have done the same.

The issue is not smoothed when every time a character encounters some dilemma, we are told that they are “facing [their] own crossroads calling,” although most of the time these decisions are over something completely inappropriate such as searching for Amber when she disappears in a snowstorm, or helping “evil” Vagabond Vic when he becomes sick. Worst of all, when Amber decides she’s really in love with Robert after all, and he comes to show her an engagement ring she mistakenly believes is someone else’s, instead of being honest with him about her feelings—“I’m not the type to throw myself at a man, no matter how much life hurts without him”—she is nasty and mean, and the pair barely speak for four months after that. The fact that she severely bungled her “calling” in this instance is never pointed out, and after she discovers the ring was actually means for her, “again Amber stood at a crossroads,” and again she fails to tell Robert how she feels, only that she thought the ring was for someone else, leaving it for him to do the heavy lifting and propose, with no hint from her that she’s changed her mind about her feelings for him.

So everyone in the book is, by its long overdue end, touched by the glorifying Crossroads Calling and has a true religious fervor in their heart, but none of it hangs together. All this religious devotion is whipped up out of a basic desire to do the most good one can, but this is not a particularly unique or even Christian (Ghandi, anyone?) principle. The characters talk a lot, but their spiritual awakenings are told to us, not shown, so they don’t feel sincere, and frankly apart from Amber, no one really does a lot of good, either (Sam writes an inspirational book and editor Sam Baker gives up his job in Portland to start a small paper in LaGrande, and little Billy Carter wins over a savage killer dog named Satan just by believing he won’t get his face ripped off). Amber, the main character shows no growth during this story; Sam seems to have, but we are told this, and his character essentially slinks off to a remote cabin to write his book halfway through, and is seldom seen again. This book wants to be inspirational, but it just ends up being insipid and boring.

Police Nurse

By William Neubauer, ©1964

Cover illustration by Rudy Nappi

They warned her—you’re asking for trouble! But Nurse Elaine wouldn’t give up. As a police nurse it was her job to help people, and Ed Morley, accused of murder, needed her help. His youth, good looks, and wealth had turned the whole town against him. Elaine was sure he wouldn’t get a fair trial unless Lydia Shelton helped. Lydia was the owner of the town’s paper—and Elaine’s rival for reporter Mike Jones’ heart. And Lydia promised to help, but her price was high—Nurse Elaine must leave town and never see Mike Jones again.

GRADE: A-

BEST QUOTES:

“The purple eyes glared. Elaine didn’t die.”

“Girls, you know, have the oddest minds.”

“If it wasn’t for men, us girls wouldn’t have no trouble. I say a girl which marries a guy can’t blame anybody but herself. Don’t ask me to say more.”

“True feminine beauty, Warburton, is compounded of appearance and serenity. Always be serene.”

REVIEW:

Elaine Warburton is both a police sergeant and a prison nurse, which makes her one exceptionally tough cookie. And this proves very helpful to her, for at book’s open, she is embroiled in a political situation that I never quite got a handle on—one of the book’s few weaknesses. As far as I can tell, the hospital director, Dr. O. Walter Thorpe, is tussling for control of the prison hospital with Police Commissioner Hendricks; the mayor, too, is involved in the fray, and the upcoming election is going to decide the fate of the prison ward. Elaine, who is head of the prison ward, is being thrown under the bus as a means of demonstrating that the police are not suited to run a hospital. The problem here is that by pretty much everyone’s standards, Elaine is absolute tops at her job. As various factions push to get her fired, she ups the ante by threatening to quit, and is quickly begged not to leave, which gives her more power than ever. It’s a real pleasure to watch Elaine Warburton successfully wrangle numerous politicos and doctors with a hard-boiled aplomb that would do Sam Spade proud—she even knocks out with a punch to the face someone attempting to abduct her. Doing her one better than even Mr. Spade, however, is the fact that she’s a damned good nurse, knowing even before her surgeons what they will need next.

Complicating the situation is the fact that one of Elaine’s nemeses is Miss Lydia Sheldon, who is publisher of the Pacific City Times, 400 pounds, and angling to steal Elaine’s boyfriend, newspaper reporter Mike Jones. Lydia’s scheme is to set Mike up as editor of the paper if he will marry her. Interestingly, though Mike is, of course, an excellent reporter, he understands that he is not a very good editor, which conflicts with his desire to hold the top spot. In a way, this inner discord helps him choose the right woman in the end (you knew he would), but it adds a bit of unexpected complexity to the story.

Lydia’s father is planning to run for mayor, so it all loops back again to the prison vs. hospital control of Elaine’s ward. I never exactly understood why the prison ward was so important to everyone, and all the machinations of all the characters were hard to follow, but overall this is a very enjoyable book. It’s funny, written in a succinct style, entertaining, energetic, and remarkably appreciative of its heroine in a way few VNRNs are—Elaine is not just talented and smart, but powerful. Elaine’s female coworkers are supportive and strong, which I must confess I didn’t expect from a male writer (curious that William abbreviates to just the initial; usually it’s women writers who do this, depending on basic sexism that readers will assume the writer is male and correspondingly give the book more weight; was Mr. Neubauer hoping his readers would assume he is female?). I confess a fondness for William Neubauer beyond his apparently egalitarian views as suggested in this book, as he penned the fabulously titled Scandalous Career Girl under the pen name Gordon Semple—“She would do anything for success,” breathes the cover lines. Neubauer wrote many other nurse novels as well as sluttier nurse books (including Playboy Nurse) that I will look forward to after the romp—or alley fistfight—that is Police Nurse. 

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Headline Nurse

By Phyllis Ross, ©1965
Cover illustration by Harry Bennett

“I’m a nurse! Not a woman!” She kept repeating the words to herself as she looked down at Pete’s broken body. His shirt was in rags, one trouser was ripped from ankle to knee, and there was a terrible gash on his forehead. She took out bandages and antiseptic and began to dress the wounds—all the time trying to forget that the battered man was the one she loved. The others in the clinic had turned their backs for a moment. She leaned down quickly and brushed her lips against his bruised cheek. “Oh, my darling,” she cried softly, “My poor darling.”

GRADE: B

BEST QUOTES:
“College, by itself, doesn’t fit you for any career except teaching.”

“Not many women can look sleek and sinuous on a stanchion!”

“Chrys went there to relax and Ken went there to neck.”

“What are you—a communist?”

REVIEW:
Chrys Evans has just graduated from nursing school and has taken a job as nurse at the Port Anne Gazette—“temporarily,” she acknowledges, until she gets herself a husband. And not just any husband, mind you, but a rich one. Chrys (short for, I’m sorry to say, Chrysanthemum) is unique amongst VNRN heroines in that she is a blatant gold digger. While hanging out on the docks one evening—she’s from Arizona, see, so all that water is really fascinating—she happens to run into Ken Hopkins, the 22-year-old son of her boss, newspaper magnate Gary Hopkins. At the end of their conversation, he kisses her. I’m always stunned by the rapidity in which the male characters make their move.

While Chrys knows that she could have Ken on a leash in no time, she also knows that “she could never, never get him to marry her. A boy who can be forced into a business he detests will never marry against his parents’ wishes.” So her scheme is to get him to take her to a big upcoming dance at the country club, where she can rub silk-clad elbows with the town’s elite, and “find her way to other, less infant sons.” She’s pretty ruthless in her attempt to reel in her invitation, too. The next time she meets him, she plays him like a pro. “Say, have you eaten lunch?” he asks her. “As if the idea had just come to him,” she thinks. He takes her to a restaurant, where the menu “was oversized—and expensive. Good!” She orders the chateaubriand, and eats every bit of it. This girl is a hungry tiger.

But there’s this up-and-coming reporter, Peter John Sprock. He visits her on the first day with a fake injury, because word gets around—“word that the new nurse was quite a dish!” With lines like that, you know she is going to tumble for him like a bag of wet cement, and who could blame her? The first sign of their blossoming love is a tendency to quarrel whenever they meet. When Pete shows up at the clinic door, trying to find out why Chrys has sent a fellow employee to the hospital, she refuses to tell him anything. “ ‘Career women!’ Pete snarls, and stamped out of the clinic.” Boy, he really knows how to insult a gal.

Chrys finally snags her invitation to the ball—but what is she going to wear? She has to have an insanely expensive dress, “not for Ken, or for Ken’s friends. He wouldn’t know the difference between a basement bargain and a Paris original. But his mother would know, all right, and the mothers of his friends.” So how is our schemer going to get the money for this dress? Enter Pete, who takes Chrys to the horse races—naturally she wins big, $244, on a long shot. She has no qualms about informing Pete exactly what she’s up to. The money is “not really for a dress, Pete. For a chance to sail down that river, and out to sea. For a chance to do things and see things in the great big world—and not be cooped up forever in a narrow town, with a husband I’ve come to despise, and children I resent.” Money can buy glamour, she tells him—and he answers, “Apparently it can buy you.” Chrys, bless her, is not even insulted by this remark.

Then push comes to shove—and to brass knuckles—when Pete is beaten up while covering a dockworkers’ strike. While she is patching him together again, she keeps herself from falling apart by telling herself, “I’m a nurse! Not a woman, but a nurse … That’s not Pete—that’s only a nameless, faceless patient.” She takes him home and stays with him all night—on the living room sofa, I swear!—most of which she spends thinking, “very deeply, about herself.” Guess what she decides?

Headline Nurse has some unique aspects to it, and the writing is entertaining. The cover illustration is good, if limited, and I love the fact that the cover includes the line, “Continued on back page.” At first this just confused me, but the back cover is more clearly laid out to look like a newspaper clipping, so even if it took a while, I finally got the reference. All in all, even if this is not a great book, it is nonetheless worth reading.