A review by macrosinthemitten
Fever by Mary Beth Keane

4.0

Typhoid Mary, a subject I knew little about, was a real woman from history who was an asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid. This book is a fictionalization of her life and it was really fascinating. Mary Mallon worked as a cook in wealthy homes in New York in the early 1900s. After a series of families fell ill - and in some cases, dead - health officials began to investigate. Mary was sent to live in isolation on an island off of New York. Fighting her own confusion and desire to cook, which is one of the only pleasures in life, and the frustration of being isolated, Mary begins to work for her release. This was a really interesting book that had some parallels to the isolation around COVID and it introduced me to a topic I really did not know much about. I loved the lyrical prose and the development of Mary’s character as she worked through a lot of life’s challenges.