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Backstage Nurse
Book by Jane Converse
157 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
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March 31, 2022
After channeling Joan Crawford as Mommie Dearest in Nurse on Trial, Jane Converse has now turned to Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” for inspiration for Backstage Nurse. In other words, both books are eerily similar. With Nurse on Trial, it’s the faded neurotic movie star who abruptly drops dead after being given a few pills by her nurse; in Backstage Nurse, it’s the were-you-ever-famous? neurotic Dolly Joy, once a would-be child star driven relentlessly by her stage mother, who abruptly drops dead after being given a few pills by her nurse.
Laverne Banks—maybe this was once a reasonable name to give a character—is dating resident Eric McLory, who like all sensible interns has sworn not to marry before he is well-established in his practice. She wants to spend more time with him, so when Laverne learns that Eric is going to be playing his guitar in a show put on by the hospital auxiliary, she decides to audition as well, so at least she can see him twice a week at rehearsals. In the meantime, she is hired to nurse the wife of philandering Dr. Phillip Hume.
Dolly Joy—“How’s that for a theatrical name?” Phillip asks Laverne—is a hypochondriac recluse. When she meets Laverne, the first thing that Dolly’s mother, Vida Foulkes, does is show her all the framed photographs of a prepubescent Dolly Joy, back when she still had promise: “‘This is Dolly when she won third prize at the Kiwanis Club amateur night,’” Vida tells Laverne. Vida’s dialogue mostly consists of screaming at someone: Dr. Hume for his extracurricular activities, Dolly for letting her down, Laverne for allegedly pursuing Dr. Hume: “I gave my whole life to make a star out of Dolly Joy. I could still do it, if I didn’t have people like you and Phillip stabbing me in the back, trying to undermine by daughter’s confidence in me,” she shrieks at Laverne.
Laverne attempts to cheer up Dolly by doing her hair and putting her on a diet, but she brooks no nonsense: “Get hold of yourself,” she tells her patient. Dolly swears she’ll reform, but always backslides—then Laverne gets the idea to have Dolly audition for the hospital review. It turns out that Dolly can actually sing the blues, and blows everyone away with her performance. “How many white singers let go like that?” marvels the review’s director. But success is short-lived—two lines into her next number, Dolly keels over on the stage. Who killed her? Dr. Hume is the principle suspect, though the press is convinced that Laverne has a hand in it. All is revealed at the inquest, of course, in stereotypical fashion, when someone in the height of a furious diatribe lets something slip, and then it all comes tumbling out.
Backstage Nurse is a pleasant book, with well-drawn characters and amusing writing. It’s got a good story line and backbone, and the whodunit mystery is tightly written (if still fairly obvious). But on the whole, I might have liked it more if I hadn’t already read another version of it in Nurse on Trial.
See my blog about vintage nurse romance novels:
http://vintagenurseromancenovels.blog...
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/vintage_nur...
Laverne Banks—maybe this was once a reasonable name to give a character—is dating resident Eric McLory, who like all sensible interns has sworn not to marry before he is well-established in his practice. She wants to spend more time with him, so when Laverne learns that Eric is going to be playing his guitar in a show put on by the hospital auxiliary, she decides to audition as well, so at least she can see him twice a week at rehearsals. In the meantime, she is hired to nurse the wife of philandering Dr. Phillip Hume.
Dolly Joy—“How’s that for a theatrical name?” Phillip asks Laverne—is a hypochondriac recluse. When she meets Laverne, the first thing that Dolly’s mother, Vida Foulkes, does is show her all the framed photographs of a prepubescent Dolly Joy, back when she still had promise: “‘This is Dolly when she won third prize at the Kiwanis Club amateur night,’” Vida tells Laverne. Vida’s dialogue mostly consists of screaming at someone: Dr. Hume for his extracurricular activities, Dolly for letting her down, Laverne for allegedly pursuing Dr. Hume: “I gave my whole life to make a star out of Dolly Joy. I could still do it, if I didn’t have people like you and Phillip stabbing me in the back, trying to undermine by daughter’s confidence in me,” she shrieks at Laverne.
Laverne attempts to cheer up Dolly by doing her hair and putting her on a diet, but she brooks no nonsense: “Get hold of yourself,” she tells her patient. Dolly swears she’ll reform, but always backslides—then Laverne gets the idea to have Dolly audition for the hospital review. It turns out that Dolly can actually sing the blues, and blows everyone away with her performance. “How many white singers let go like that?” marvels the review’s director. But success is short-lived—two lines into her next number, Dolly keels over on the stage. Who killed her? Dr. Hume is the principle suspect, though the press is convinced that Laverne has a hand in it. All is revealed at the inquest, of course, in stereotypical fashion, when someone in the height of a furious diatribe lets something slip, and then it all comes tumbling out.
Backstage Nurse is a pleasant book, with well-drawn characters and amusing writing. It’s got a good story line and backbone, and the whodunit mystery is tightly written (if still fairly obvious). But on the whole, I might have liked it more if I hadn’t already read another version of it in Nurse on Trial.
See my blog about vintage nurse romance novels:
http://vintagenurseromancenovels.blog...
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/vintage_nur...
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review