Book 42

The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen

Type: Fiction, Historical Fiction

My rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Why I chose it: I thought the premise of this book and its setting amid the 1918 Spanish influenza was a very timely topic given all the media frenzy involving the so-called "swine flu."

What I liked about it: This is a really well-told tale about the fictitious town of Commonwealth, Washington that quarantined itself from other towns during the outbreak of the unusually virulent and deadly influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. The 1918 influenza epidemic killed as many as 100 million people worldwide in one year. (The world's population at that time was about 1.6 billion.)

Interlaced within this main story line were other noteworthy topics of the time, including Americans both fighting and protesting World War I and the labor violence of the era. The character of Uncle Sam was born during this period as the U.S. government launched a propaganda campaign unprecedented in scale. Getting Americans to fight against the Germans was quite a task for President Woodrow Wilson when nearly one-quarter of Americans at that time were of German descent.

I thought the author did a fantastic job of developing the characters. It felt like I understood them and could relate to them. Each time I picked up this book I felt like I traveled back in time to 1918 and was there watching their struggles play out in front of me.

Many of you probably have similar stories, but my great-grandmother, Maria Gigliotti, died in October 1918 at the young age of 32 from the Spanish influenza. The story passed down from family members is that she was a nurse and contracted the flu while treating flu patients. After she died at the local Armory where patients were being cared for, her husband and my great-grandfather, Domenico, carried her body back to their home. Rest in peace, Maria and Domenico.