Review | Fever

The Book: Fever by Mary Beth Keane Date Published: March 13, 2013

Dates Read: August 27 - September 1, 2018

Current Goodreads Rating: 3.66/5

If you're new here, welcome. I am an avid reader obsessed with really random and (sometimes) morbid things. For example, I love reading about old illnesses and how the world learned how to fight back against an enemy that we couldn't even see. This is how Fever came to be in my life.

Welcome to the Literary Something.

I've been an avid listener of the podcast Lore for a little over a year now. If you haven't heard of it I highly recommend you check it out on your favorite podcast app. Over the course of the 90+ episodes Aaron Mahnke has released I have learned so much about the lore behind vampires, werewolves, aliens, sea monsters, and famous murders like H.H. Holmes. Just recently I listened to his podcast on the famous Typhoid Mary, a woman who famously infected dozens of New Yorkers without showing any symptoms herself. It was fascinating to listen to, but it was hard to feel sympathy for the woman especially when she refused to believe Dr. Soper and the Department of Health.

However, though I did think occasionally Mary was a little unreasonable, I did find it a little irritating that a group of men kidnapped her from her home and quarantined her on her little island to study without sharing any of this information with Mary. I mean the woman may have been infecting people left and right, but she was also a human being that deserved a little respect and definitely some answers. But again, it was hard to sympathize when the only other option was letting her out to infect more.

Then I picked up Mary Beth Keane's Fever. Which, in a cool bit of news, Mary Beth Keane follows my bookstagram. Mary, if you're reading this review, you're very awesome. I feel like I have an actual celebrity following me and my "artsy" pictures of my lap, my dog, and my books.

Keane's book added a new element that Mahnke's (admittedly awesome) podcast did not have: Mary Mallon's side of the story.

I think one of the most powerful parts of Keane's story is that we get to see Mary slowly come to the realization that she actually is the cause of so much death and misery. It's actually a little comical in the beginning. Mary is so stubborn and belligerent at everyone she comes across. It doesn't matter if it's a nurse just following orders or a doctor who thinks he knows what's best for her she has the perfect one liner with just the right amount of snark.

Gradually, however, that begins to shift. We get snippets of flashbacks to families she enjoyed working with and, even before that, taking care of her sister's kids way back in Ireland. It's not the loss of a job that she enjoys or even really the deaths of the Mr. and Mrs., but the deaths of the children. Some of the most visual parts of Keane's book are the parts where Mary is remembering desperately trying to save the various children who had been infected with Typhoid Fever. She describes feeling the weight of an infant boy gradually becoming heavier and heavier until she realizes that he isn't breathing anymore. It's utterly heartbreaking.

Also it's not all about Mary. Throughout the book we see snapshots of real historical events unfolding before Mary's very eyes. She works down the street from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory when it catches fire and kills all those trapped women inside. We hear about the Titanic disaster, the terrible hygienic practices of the time, and the prejudice that permeates (and, honestly, still permeates) the upper and lower levels of society in New York.

The thing that really pissed me off about Mary's situation is the fact that, about halfway through the book, after being forcibly quarantined from society, Mary discovers that there is another carrier like her, a milk man. Instead of being taken from his home and tested on, the man is allowed to run his business from home with the understanding that he wouldn't do any of the actual handling of the milk. It takes Mary another year and a full blown court case before she is allowed off her island. Utter bullshit. Men are trash.

Questions I have. Alfred. Mary's supposed boyfriend. Is he actually real? I realize that this is a question I could easily answer for myself by googling Typhoid Mary, but, like Mary herself, you can't make me do anything.

Alfred and Mary is another facet of Mary's already pretty tragic life. Throughout the book the two are always tethered together. If one tries to pull away, eventually they stretch too far and the tether snaps them back together with sometimes pretty disastrous consequences. The development and eventual end of their relationship was something that I didn't originally enjoy, but in the end I found myself kind of rooting for them. I knew they weren't good for each other, but dammit they were trying and in a time when people mainly just looked out for themselves, that was saying something.

Long story short:

• Surprise, surprise a book about Typhoid Fever is actually pretty sad

• Ladies are people too even if they are carriers of disease

• History is still pretty cool.

My Rating: 4/5