Annus Mirabilis
I just read Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, by Geraldine Brooks. She wrote People of the Book, which I loved, and March, which didn't hold my interest for more than 20 or 30 pages.
Year of Wonders is based on the story of an actual town in England, Eyam (pronounced "Eem"), where there was a bubonic plague outbreak in 1665-66. The town voluntarily quarantined itself to avoid spreading the contagion, at the behest of its pastor. The narrator of the book is a young widow who works as a maid in the pastor's house. Eyam is a mining town, and when he first proposes the quarantine the pastor talks about how the suffering of the villagers will refine them like ore. Of course what actually happens is that some people, including the main character, Anna, discover strength and talents they didn't know they had, while others lose whatever humanity they may have possessed in good times. The book has a surprise twist at the end, which isn't necessarily so surprising when you read Brooks's take on it in the author interview at the back of the edition I have.
This was very well done -- a moving story, well written, and I really cared about the main character. Good stuff.
Year of Wonders is based on the story of an actual town in England, Eyam (pronounced "Eem"), where there was a bubonic plague outbreak in 1665-66. The town voluntarily quarantined itself to avoid spreading the contagion, at the behest of its pastor. The narrator of the book is a young widow who works as a maid in the pastor's house. Eyam is a mining town, and when he first proposes the quarantine the pastor talks about how the suffering of the villagers will refine them like ore. Of course what actually happens is that some people, including the main character, Anna, discover strength and talents they didn't know they had, while others lose whatever humanity they may have possessed in good times. The book has a surprise twist at the end, which isn't necessarily so surprising when you read Brooks's take on it in the author interview at the back of the edition I have.
This was very well done -- a moving story, well written, and I really cared about the main character. Good stuff.