Book Review: Fever by Mary Beth Keane

Fever
by Mary Beth Keane

I knew nothing about Mary Mallon, known as “Typhoid Mary”, before reading this historical fiction. The novel follows her life from the time she left Ireland at age fifteen, through her two forced quarantines on North Brother Island (1907-1910 and 1915-1938). It also described other historical tragedies of the time: the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911; the preparation for World War I; the debate of medical ethics in imprisoning a carrier of disease (and of trying to force a gall bladder removal surgery against her will); and the end to doctors prescribing cocaine, heroine, opium, and morphine for pain. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Through her cooking she infected fifty-three individuals, causing three known deaths. Fever was written by the author of the current bestseller Say Again, Yes.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Say Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane, The Andromeda Strain by Michel Crichton, or The Stand by Stephen King.]\

[ official Fever page on the official Mary Beth Keane web site ]

Recommended by Jodi R.
Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries

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