Fever by Mary Beth Keane

 Mary Mallon (1869-1938), so called Typhoid Mary, was an Irish immigrant who came to New York. “She began as a laundress, but with an innate talent for cooking, Mary ascended the domestic-service ladder and worked as a cook for upper-class families.” However, in 1907 it was discovered that she was the first “healthy carrier” of Typhoid Fever in America. “To prevent Mary from further spreading the disease, the New York Department of Health isolated her on North Brother Island for three years. A condition of her release was that she never cook professionally again.” Had she used her second chance wisely?

New York, 1907. Mary Mallon, a cook for a prominent NYC family is removed from her employment and quarantined. It is “alleged that she has been passing Typhoid Fever through her cooking, though she manifests no signs of the disease herself.”

She truly believes that there is nothing wrong with her and she is having a hard time reconciling with the injustice done to her. “She’d gone from working and living in NYC, making a good wage, buying what she liked, to being trapped on an island…”

She receives a letter from a lawyer, who is pretty sure he could win her case. After three years at North Brother Island, she is released under a condition that she can’t work as a cook. She goes back to being laundress. There is no magic, no real transformations that come with cooking. Not mentioning much lower wages. Life becomes “one long, narrow road, with no turns, no peaks or valleys.” When she has had enough, she says no to working on Sundays and no to low wages. She has had enough of dishonest cobbler selling wobbly shoes.

Mary is a strong headed woman, of great passion and reckless judgement. She is a gifted cook, passionate about transforming food into a tasty meal. But she is also stubborn and doesn’t want to face facts, thus putting lives at risk. She sees herself as a victim.

The story is engrossingly presented in action, unraveling many layers to who Mary is; what she feels and thinks; what she experiences at different houses where she is employed; how she makes her way from Ireland to NY; how she gets her first job and her transformation to being a cook.

There are layers to Mary that you do want to sympathize with her. But there are also layers when you feel disappointment. I hoped for this strong character to reinvent herself. It’s true that her options were limited, but at the same time it seems as she never gave herself that chance, to test what else could be out there for her. It seems like her stubbornness was her loss. You can make yourself a victim once, but not twice.

The story also brings the vivid portrayal of the city. The hustle and bustle of the streets. The smell. The crowded tenements. And the lives of the servant class. It is all brilliantly presented and written.

Release date: March 2020

Publisher: Scribner, Simon & Schuster