Title: Fever Author: Mary Beth Keane
Published: March 12, 2013
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 306
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:On the eve of the twentieth century, Mary Mallon emigrated from Ireland at age fifteen to make her way in New York City. Brave, headstrong, and dreaming of being a cook, she fought to climb up from the lowest rung of the domestic-service ladder. Canny and enterprising, she worked her way to the kitchen, and discovered in herself the true talent of a chef. Sought after by New York aristocracy, and with an independence rare for a woman of the time, she seemed to have achieved the life she'd aimed for when she arrived in Castle Garden. Then one determined medical engineer noticed that she left a trail of disease wherever she cooked, and identified her as an asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid Fever. With this seemingly preposterous theory, he made Mallon a hunted woman.
The Department of Health sent Mallon to North Brother Island, where she was kept in isolation from 1907 to 1910, then released under the condition that she never work as a cook again. Yet for Mary, proud of her former status and passionate about cooking, the alternatives were abhorrent. She defied the edict.
The phrase “Typhoid Mary” is one that’s known to most people in some form or another, though not many are aware of its origin; prior to reading this book, I know I wasn’t. Fever tells the story of Mary Mallon, a woman who, though healthy, spread disease through her cooking for years before sanitation engineers caught up with her. By itself, the story had a lot of potential, but I found that I didn’t much care for the way Mary Beth Keane chose to execute her premise. In the end, this was only a so-so read.
Fever opens with Mary Mallon’s initial arrest in 1907, and then covers her three-year quarantine on Big Brother Island, then moves on to the time after her release and then her re-quarantine on Big Brother. Interspersed with all of this are frequent flashbacks so that Keane gives us a fairly cohesive look at Mary’s life. However, I also felt that a large portion of this book wasn’t focused on Mary and the strange trail of disease she left behind. The author seemed eager to expose social realities among the working class of New York City at the turn of the century. Because of that, some portions of the book, especially in the second half, felt as if they weren’t pertinent to Mary’s life at all, so I grew bored or apathetic at points.
Mary’s character was also a stumbling block here, as she’s not presented as either a likeable or logical woman. Throughout her life, she refuses to acknowledge that she is a carrier of Typhoid Fever, even when faced with evidence. Finally, she’s released with the stipulation that she never work as a cook again, but what does she do? She cooks. And is then re-imprisoned for the rest of her life. She also carries on this relationship with a good-for-nothing addict, and there’s no real reason for this, as it never seemed like she truly loved him. If I’m to take Fever’s portrayal as fact, then the historical Mary Mallon was stubborn, proud, selfish, and actually somewhat pathetic, in that she kept taking her awful boyfriend back. I couldn’t connect with her at any point, and any interest I had in her story was lost because of how she acted.
Fever isn’t all that long of a book, but it felt too long. Keane never managed to interest me in her character’s life or problems, since it seemed to me that Mary was the cause of all her problems. I think perhaps the author tried too much. This book attempts to document the life of a infamous historical figure, but it also wants to provide sweeping criticism of American society at the turn of the 20th century. Theoretically, it could be done, but I don’t think that Mary Beth Keane had the talent to do what she set out to do.
All in all, Fever is a forgettable book. I wasn’t wildly impressed by any particular part of it, though I found it boring more than anything else, rather than upsetting or outright unreadable. It is a shame, since the story of Typhoid Mary is a particularly interesting one.
