A few days ago I raced to the library right before it closed, and arrived with about 15 minutes to spare. When the librarian's quiet, soporific voice filled the library, announcing over the speakers that the library would close in five minutes, I panicked. I had not picked a single book. So, I rushed over to the new book section, grabbed four books that didn't look at first glance sappy romances or westerns, and checked those out.
When I got home, I reviewed my hastily-selected haul to see what exactly I had ended up with. To my astonishment, one of the books, Fever by Mary Beth Keane, was about Typhoid Mary! Just the previous day I had been visiting my parents and we'd talked about Typhoid Mary, which is a pretty unusual topic of conversation. Needless to say, I was pretty astounded by the coincidence, and decided to read Fever first.
Now is the time to confess my finicky-ness when it comes to fictionalized accounts of real events or people. In theory, I love the idea. Why not take something interesting from history and use it as a basis for a great work of fiction? But the logical part of my brain, which I have trouble turning off, doesn't quite know what to make about fictionalized history. I am constantly trying to decipher what is real, what isn't, desperate to be able to separate the truth from the speculation or outright invention. But, what the heck, I decided to give it a whirl.
For those who have not yet read Fever
For those of you who aren't even passingly familiar with the story of Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary, let me give you a primer: she was an Irish immigrant to New York identified as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid in the early 1900s. That pretty much sums it up. Many of you probably know how things eventually turned out, but in case you don't or have forgotten, I'll leave that for those who have already read the book.
There is no doubt that Mary Beth Keane is a talented writer, though I've not read her other book and, to be honest, won't seek it out. I thoroughly enjoyed Fever even though I knew what was going to happen at the end, being familiar with Mary Mallon's story. To write about someone so well known means that Keane had to invest more in the journey than the destination, and I feel that she did that quite successfully, inviting us to be privy to Mary's rich and often contradictory inner thoughts. In fact, only a brief courtroom scene makes this feel like a medical drama at all. It's much more about an immigrant woman with a strong will, a temper, and a dubious boyfriend. The whole "typhoid" part of "Typhoid Mary" is really quite secondary, the "Mary" part being the most important to the novel.
The best part of Keane's novel is that we as readers are forced to grapple with our own feelings towards Mary. Do we like her? Do we despise her? Can we like her and despise her simultaneously? Do we root for her, or for her enemies? Can getting to know a person on a human level make their mistakes, even crimes, all the easier to forgive and even forget? At what point is a person complicit to, or even actively courting, disaster? These are tough questions that Keane makes us at least try to answer, and I applaud her for that.
I do feel Fever suffered some mishaps. There was a jump in point of view that I found unnerving. The novel was written in third person prescient with the focus on Mary, except for a small section where the focus jumped to her lover, Alfred. It was a strange and awkward leap, unnecessarily jarring for the reading experience. Besides that, I thought the story was handled skilfully, and some passages were truly beautiful.
Recommended?
Yes, especially for people who like character-driven works. Three out of five stars.
Tips
As always, check your local library! I also recommend doing some quick googling about Mary Mallon either before or after you read, so you can start to pick apart what is real and what is fiction.
For those who HAVE read Fever
Warning warning spoilers! Including book-based spoilers and not just historical-fact-based spoilers!
^hahaha I thought that was funny :-) ^
So, tackling historical fiction...and not just as in it's set in the past, but it is actually about real history... is tricky for me, as I mentioned. In this case, I can assure you that the major facts are all correct. Dates line up. Mary and Soper and her employers names all match up. Mary did immigrate from Ireland, did work as a cook. She was indeed quarantined and then released, on the condition that she never cook for others again. She did work as a laundress for a bit then as a cook again, until she got discovered and put back on North Brother Island, where she died. I knew all of that before I read the novel.
However, this book takes us quite beyond the facts, does it not? After reading the novel I came across this article, which so accurately reflects the realities expressed in the novel that I almost feel as if Keane may have been inspired by it. So, let's get right down to it. Of what was Mary guilty?
Surely we can all agree the first outbreaks, before she met Dr. Soper and learned about her predicament, were purely misfortunes. But once Mary knew, and cooked anyway, well, what can we make of that? Is she no better than a murderess? Perhaps that depends on Mary's own understanding of her status as an asymptomatic carrier. In the novel, and, the article seems to say, in real life, Mary was never really convinced that she was a carrier. Let's forget the historical Mary here and focus on the Mary of the novel. She was a smart woman, but she was not a scientist. Remember germ theory was not so engrained in our consciousness as it is now. She stresses time and time again that she'd never been sick a day in her life, so maybe she truly was not able to get her head around the fact that she was a carrier. And if she didn't think she was a carrier, then why not cook? But then, what about those little hints she drops, like her uneasiness at preparing the fresh fruit slices her neighbor requests, but then doing it anyway? Surely that represents a guilty conscience, right? A niggling of awareness, of guilt, that she ignores? And if she had even an inkling that it was true, then I think we can call her guilty for that outbreak at the maternity hospital. I like, though, that Keane makes us explore that nuance, makes us care for Mary even despite this. Makes us see her as a person, not just some walking petri dish.
Speaking of toxic things, what can be said about Mary's relationship with Alfred? Not sure how I feel about it, to be honest. I hated the jump in the book to focus on Alfred. I didn't want to read about him, I wanted to read about Mary, and the whole thing seemed incongruous anyway. It wasn't that I disliked Alfred, but I found him as a sort of distraction to the part of the story that I actually cared about. Mary and Alfred's relationship was not presented in a way that made me care about it, either way. I didn't care if it ended well or not. I didn't care if one of them broke it off or not. I didn't so much care when Alfred died. I'll admit that this aspect of the novel fell flat to me. I guess the point of it was to show that Mary could take care of herself, damn it, but still had a soft enough heart for a relationship? I don't know. The Alfred thing almost felt shoe-horned in, like Keane liked that subplot too much to let it go even though it didn't really serve the novel. I'm sure others disagree with this sentiment and thought it was integral. But me? Not so much. Also, as a side note, about ten minutes of googling (admittedly not my strongest effort) finds no mention of Alfred aside from his character in the book. If Mary Mallon had an Alfred or someone like him in real life, it appears he's lost to history (or at least lost to rapid google searches).
The funny thing is that I'm writing a novel that has similarities with this one. My novel is also about a woman in quarantine because of a disease. This woman also has a lover on the outside. And it is also written in third person prescient. That said, I liked seeing how another author handled these things, although Keane had the burden of history on her shoulder and I do not.
Well, that said, I'll let my ramblings come to a close, and I'll let you guys take it over from here in the comment section! Remember to please spoiler tag anything that isn't common historical knowledge. Some questions to get things started:
-What are your feelings on fictionalized historical events? How does it change the reading experience for you?
-How do you feel about Mary and Alfred's relationship? In the end, did it hurt or benefit Mary? And did you think it enhanced the novel, or detracted from it?
-How much did you know about Mary Mallon before you read the book? How did that color your reading of it? Did you feel compelled to learn more about the real Mary after you finished the novel?
-What are your thoughts on Mary? As a character? As a historical figure? How can we reconcile the two? Do we even need to?
-Now the big question, the doozy: Can we consider Mary guilty of murdering the people who died at the maternity hospital? Or was it as Mary said, there is disease everywhere, and everyone dies anyways?
Thanks for checking out my blog, and remember, happy reading!
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