In the hands of Mary Beth Keane, Mary Mallon becomes an extraordinarily dramatic, vexing, sympathetic, uncompromising, and unforgettable character. She defied the edict.īringing early twentieth-century New York alive-the neighborhoods, the bars, the park being carved out of upper Manhattan, the emerging skyscrapers, the boat traffic-Fever is as fiercely compelling as Typhoid Mary herself, an ambitious retelling of a forgotten life. Here is what they say about the book that puts a real face to the name.
22 out of 23 reviewers gave it 4 or 5 stars. Mary Beth Keane's Fever is a hit with BookBrowse readers. Yet for Mary-spoiled by her status and income and genuinely passionate about cooking-most domestic and factory jobs were heinous. Fever is Mary Beth Keane's ambitious retelling of the life of Mary Mallon - Typhoid Mary - a fiercely compelling, sympathetic, uncompromising, and unforgettable heroine. She was released under the condition that she never work as a cook again. In order to keep New York’s citizens safe from Mallon, the Department of Health sent her to North Brother Island where she was kept in isolation from 1907-1910. Working in the kitchens of the upper class, she left a trail of disease in her wake, until one enterprising and ruthless “medical engineer” proposed the inconceivable notion of the “asymptomatic carrier”-and from then on Mary Mallon was a hunted woman. Mary Mallon was a courageous, headstrong Irish immigrant woman who bravely came to America alone, fought hard to climb up from the lowest rung of the domestic service ladder, and discovered in herself an uncanny, and coveted, talent for cooking. She wondered whether it was possible to know a truth, and then quickly unknow it, bricking up that portal of knowledge until every pinpoint of light was covered over.” ~ Quotes from the book.A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as “Typhoid Mary,” the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the early twentieth century-by an award-winning writer chosen as one of “5 Under 35” by the National Book Foundation. “… she also wondered if it was possible for a person to know something and not know something at the same time. When they didn’t get better, it was sad, but how could they have blamed her, one woman, when the whole of New York City was teeming with disease, and doctors now said that even the hang straps on the IRT were under suspicion? Would they shut down the subways? Of course not.” “People got sick, and usually got better. You were too quick, Mary scolded herself when the milk was returned to the kitchen in its porcelain jug with a message from Mr. “The day began with sour milk and got worse. The book brings this real historical episode to life. In March 1907, Mary Mallon was detained and quarantined after investigations revealed a link with typhoid deaths in the New York homes in which she was employed as a cook.
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