A review by siria
The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson

4.0

This book lives up to its title: it really is an astonishing, passionate, beautifully written novel. To talk of the plotline would be, I think, to spoil it: not because much of it is not readily apparent to the reader as it progresses, but because how Anderson unfolds the tale, how he shows the depths of Octavian's repressed trauma and reveals the hypocrisy of those around him, the blindness of racial and gender privilege. It's a fantastic, fantastic reworking of the familiar narrative of the American Revolution, and highly recommended reading; I read it through in one fell swoop, for all that it made my heart ache. I'm definitely going to pick up the second volume, should I ever be able to lay my hands on a copy. I'm terribly curious to see how Octavian becomes that eponymous 'traitor to the nation'—and of course, which nation?