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Mary Beth Keane

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Fever: A Novel Paperback – March 18, 2014

by Mary Beth Keane (Author)

4.2 1,884 ratings

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From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a novel about the woman known as “Typhoid Mary,” who becomes, “in Keane’s assured hands…a sympathetic, complex, and even inspiring character” (O, The Oprah Magazine).

Mary Beth Keane has written a spectacularly bold and intriguing novel about the woman known as “Typhoid Mary,” the first person in America identified as a healthy carrier of Typhoid Fever.

On the eve of the twentieth century, Mary Mallon emigrated from Ireland at age fifteen to make her way in New York City. Brave, headstrong, and dreaming of being a cook, she fought to climb up from the lowest rung of the domestic-service ladder. Canny and enterprising, she worked her way to the kitchen, and discovered in herself the true talent of a chef. Sought after by New York aristocracy, and with an independence rare for a woman of the time, she seemed to have achieved the life she’d aimed for when she arrived in Castle Garden. Then one determined “medical engineer” noticed that she left a trail of disease wherever she cooked, and identified her as an “asymptomatic carrier” of Typhoid Fever. With this seemingly preposterous theory, he made Mallon a hunted woman.

The Department of Health sent Mallon to North Brother Island, where she was kept in isolation from 1907 to 1910, then released under the condition that she never work as a cook again. Yet for Mary—proud of her former status and passionate about cooking—the alternatives were abhorrent. She defied the edict.

Bringing early-twentieth-century New York alive—the neighborhoods, the bars, the park carved out of upper Manhattan, the boat traffic, the mansions and sweatshops and emerging skyscrapers—Fever is an ambitious retelling of a forgotten life. In the imagination of Mary Beth Keane, Mary Mallon becomes a fiercely compelling, dramatic, vexing, sympathetic, uncompromising, and unforgettable heroine.

Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publication date

March 18, 2014
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.7 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1451693427
ISBN-13

978-1451693423
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Gripping… a richly sympathetic and provocative portrait of the very real person behind the pariah.” —Caroline Leavitt, The San Francisco Chronicle

“Wholly absorbing, deeply moving... Mallon emerges as a woman of fierce intelligence and wrongheaded conviction… a novel that thrums with life.” —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe

“In Keane’s assured hands, Mary Mallon becomes a sympathetic, complex and even inspiring character… a compelling read.” —O, the Oprah magazine

“Keane is a talented storyteller, her style plain and steady, not unlike Mary’s demeanor. What’s most remarkable about this novel is its brilliantly visceral vision of everyday life in early-1900s New York City, a rich and detailed working-class backdrop.” —Don Oldenburg, USA Today

“A tender, detailed portrayal of willed ignorance collapsing in the face of truth.” —Patrick McGrath, The New York Times Book Review

“In this compelling historical novel, the infamous Typhoid Mary is given great depth and humanity by the gifted Keane.” —Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist (starred review)

“Keane’s Mallon is a fiercely independent woman grappling with work, love, pride and guilt… turns a maligned figure of legend into a perplexing, compelling survivor.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Fever manages to rescue a demonized woman from history and humanize her brilliantly. Mary Beth Keane brings to light a moving love story behind the headlines, and she carries the reader forward with such efficiency, you will hardly notice how graceful are her sentences and how entwined you have become with this fascinating, heart-breaking story.” —Billy Collins

“Fever is a gripping, morally provocative story of love and survival that will take you by surprise at every turn. It is also a radiant portrait of a uniquely indomitable woman and of a uniquely tumultuous time in the history of our country.” —Julia Glass

About the Author

Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia, where she received an MFA. She was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing, and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Hemingway Society. She is the author of The Walking People, Fever, and Ask Again, Yes—a New York Times bestseller and a Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Summer Reads Pick. Ask Again, Yes has been sold in twenty-two languages. She lives in New York with her family.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner; Reprint edition (March 18, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1451693427
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1451693423
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.7 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #304,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #698 in Biographical Historical Fiction
- #15,852 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #17,776 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 1,884 ratings

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Mary Beth Keane

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Mary Beth Keane is the author of The Walking People, Fever, and Ask Again, Yes, which was a New York Times best seller, The Tonight Show Summer Reads pick, and a finalist for the Goodreads Book of the Year. The Half Moon, her fourth novel, is forthcoming May 2, 2023. Mary Beth was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing, and has received citations from the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Hemingway Society. She lives outside of New York City with her husband and sons.

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4.2 out of 5

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Carole P. Roman

Mary the Victim

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2013

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I had always known about Typhoid Mary- I don't know how, but I did. This novel put a face to the name and created a personality based on her reluctance to cooperate with authorities. I liked this book, it felt like a doorway to the early 20th century. You could smell the lower east side, feel the heat of the kitchens, know the frustration of women and the poor. Life was insignificant for the lower orders, their lives were considered cheap and didn't count. The horrifying thing, it seemed was that Mary felt the same way about the rich and famous. It was a time before laws to protect the poor-young women were imprisoned in burning buildings to sew(Triangle Shirtwaist factory), or immigrants could be locked in the holds of sinking ships while wealthier patrons escaped on lifeboats(Titantic)- Keane recreates the scene from the fire, and also includes the famous sinking to share that the poor were expendable.A YOung boy is swept by the currents of the EastRiver, and while his brothers' call for help, workers nearby only offer to share their lunch. Life of the poor meant nothing, only when wealthy people where infected with the virus, did authorities take action. Mary Mallon refused to be locked away to keep the wealthy safe. She wanted to cook and refused to believe that she could be spreading disease. She defiantly refused to risk dangerous surgery to remove a infectious gall bladder. She changed her name and hid from the authorities who sought to protect her patrons from disease. While other carriers were found, it seemed strange that only Mary remained locked away in isolation to be studied like an lab rat. Here, we learn that a bread winner ( a male) must be left to find ways to support his family, and a single woman who merely lived with a man- had no rights at all. Interwoven is a doomed relationship with a co dependent , drunk boyfriend, making Mary not only a victim of the system, but of her personal life as well. I think Mary was a victim of her times,expendable because she was a woman, Irish and poor. In the book, Keane paints her as well read, intelligent, and perhaps feisty. If that is true- I have trouble with her lack of acceptance to fix a problem, her thoughtless selfishness of the danger of herself as a carrier, but I do recognize that Mary Mallon was probably a product of her times and unable to find resources to help herself, and her nature wouldn't let her go down without a fight.

16 people found this helpful

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Blondish and Bookish

Tremendously enjoyable!

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2017

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I knew that Typhoid Mary was a real person, who'd unknowingly infected people with Typhoid Fever, and that after she agreed not to continue working as a cook she did so anyway. ...And that is ALL I knew. Mary Beth Keane's book gives life to Mary Mallon's story.

Mary came to the US from Ireland, and she was brave, strong, proud, and determined. She was a talented cook, and that was part of the problem. As we now know, Mary was an asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid. She worked her way up the servant scale from a laundress to a cook, and as she worked for families she left a trail of illness and death.

Mary was in denial about carrying Typhoid. She had never, to her recollection, been sick with Typhoid, and in fact was never sick at all, she was gleaming with health her whole life. She had special abilities as a cook, and as anyone would, she wanted to exercise her skills. She got lots of praise and respect as a cook. In addition, a job as a cook paid THREE TIMES what a laundress job paid. So it's impossible to blame Mary for wanting to continue on as a cook.

When the doctors decided that Mary was a carrier, they literally kidnapped her and hospitalized her, then locked her on an island normally used to isolate people who had diseases like leprosy. Unsurprisingly, this did not make her want to cooperate! She didn't understand the science behind what they were saying—and to be fair, they had a lot of it wrong too. For awhile, they were convinced that she stored Typhoid in her gall bladder, and they tried to force her to let them remove it. She refused, and later they admitted that theory was wrong. So again, it's difficult to blame Mary for not understanding or wanting to work with the doctors to resolve the issue.

And yet—Mary was the equivalent of a loaded weapon. She killed people, albeit indirectly through ignorance and negligence. So of course she couldn't be just let alone, to continue infecting people and taking lives.

From the perspective of time, when we understand the science better, and we know the historical outcome, it seems that they might have made more progress by reasoning with Mary, or perhaps even by simply paying her the the wages she would have made as a cook and not putting her in a position where she was tempted to break her parole in order to work in the kitchen for the money.

Although this book is historical fiction, and obviously Mary's thoughts and conversations are guessed at, the broad outlines of the facts that we know are accurate, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

13 people found this helpful

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Mabel G

The tale of " Typhoid Mary".

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

Read about the life of Mary Mallon , full of ups and downs as she immigrates from Ireland to New York City. Follow her rise from the slums of the city, as she makes her way from servant to head chef in some the most exclusive homes in Manhatten. Although she is a marvelous cook there seems to be one ingredient in her meals that the Health Department doesn't sanction. As Mary Moves from estate to estate she leaves a trail of sick people behind, but yet Mary has never been sick a day in her life. This leads to the Public Health Department detaining her because they suspect her as a "Healthy Carrier", of Typhoid Fever. Eventually they release Mary because she is not the sole carrier of typhoid, there are others who are treated less crewly. Although there is one restriction on her release, she is forced to quit working as a chef. Follow along as she tries to eak out a living working in other fields in the slums of NYC. Can she survive doing other jobs to support herself? Will she return to the man she loves? Will the Health Department be able to find her when she fails to check in with them? Find out in this piece of historical fiction.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Janine

Book was in good condition

Reviewed in Canada on November 22, 2020

Verified Purchase

Good price and in good condition.

Rosemarie Fearn

I loved it

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 27, 2019

Verified Purchase

The historical setting was fascinating and very cleverly done. I had heard of Typhoid Mary and this novel really brought her to life. The author makes her into a fascinating character, both admirable for her fortitude and talent and absolutely infuriating in her inability to face up to the truth about being the carrier of infection and her relationship with her lover. What really exasperated me about her was the way she kept returning to her lover, which is so typical of an abusive relationship. She must have been very difficult to deal with but the novel made me really feel for her.

Lee W

Most Interesting

Reviewed in Australia on June 2, 2023

Verified Purchase

I know this is a novel but the author has done a lot of research on the period and Mary Mallon, alias Typhoid Mary. I grew up knowing about Mary but never knowing much beyond the basics. I enjoyed the read, the descriptions of life at times and Mary's story. Thank you

poppy

un beau portrait de femme

Reviewed in France on August 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

Première porteuse saine identifiée de la fièvre typhoïde aux états unis , Mary Mallon n'a pas eu la vie facile . A la lecture de ces pages on peut mesurer les progrès de la médecine et des connaissances scientifiques en un peu plus d'un siècle . J'ai aussi adoré l'évocation du New York de la fin du 19° , début 20° .

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DELPHINE PRICE

Bien

Reviewed in France on September 14, 2019

Verified Purchase

L'histoire est particulière ça plait ou pas

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