Fever by Mary Beth Keane

Published by Scribner on March 12, 2013 

Fever reads like a well-written biography. In fact, had Fever been written as nonfiction rather than a novel, I would be more enthusiastic about it. Despite her fluid prose and her ability to create atmospheric scenes, Mary Beth Keane's attempt to dramatize the life of Typhoid Mary falls flat. Perhaps that's because the novel remains true to the figure upon which it is based, a stubborn woman whose disagreeable personality makes it difficult to summon the empathy that the most memorable novels inspire.

In 1907, a doctor in Manhattan investigating typhoid outbreaks noticed a common link that joined many of the afflicted families: Mary Mallon had been their cook. Although Mary appears to be healthy, she is forced into the typhoid ward of a hospital. She refuses to believe that she could be a carrier of the disease. When doctors try to coerce her into consenting to the removal of her gallbladder, she reacts with understandable hostility. The authorities respond by quarantining Mary in Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island. She eventually seeks her freedom in court, loses, and spends three years on the island, steadfast in her belief that she is not a typhoid carrier.

At its best, Mary's story becomes one of an isolated woman who is on the losing side of class warfare, a headstrong worker who refused to accept the moralistic piety of her employers, who protested the ill-treatment of cooks, who dared to wear a hat identical to one owned by the lady of the house. Certainly, if Mary had been a well-educated daughter of a prosperous family rather than an Irish immigrant who lived with a man to whom she was not married, her treatment by the public health authorities and by the courts would have been less callous. The impact of class and social identity on public health decisions is one of the novel's important themes. Another is the conflict between the need to protect society from disease and the obligation to protect the liberty of American citizens. The evidence that Mary was a typhoid carrier is convincing, but the same evidence suggests that she only transmitted the disease by cooking for others. It clearly wasn't fair to Mary to hold her in quarantine when other carriers were allowed to retain their freedom.

Mary was released in 1910 on the condition that she work in a laundry, a position that Mary regarded as a backward step in her life. Given her denial that she made anyone ill, it isn't surprising that Mary abandoned the laundry for a job in a bakery, a job that she kept until health authorities found her. Fearing arrest, Mary changed her name, stopped checking in with the Department of Health, and found a job as a cook in a maternity hospital. Taken into custody after a typhoid outbreak in the hospital, Mary was quarantined at North Brother Island again in 1915.

Although Keane appears to be meticulous in her devotion to historical accuracy, she tells Mary's story with a curious absence of passion. There are moments of drama in Fever (a devastating fire is one of the best) but they are collateral to Mary's plight. The legal proceedings that took place after Mary had been quarantined for more than two years are reported with the dispassion of a journalist, as are Mary's experiences in quarantine.

The fault undoubtedly lies with the character Keane chose to write about. Mary is stubborn and abrasive, qualities that do not endear her to the reader. Part of the novel involves Mary's on-again/off-again love affair with Alfred, but Alfred is no prize. While it's no surprise that such miserable creatures were drawn together, reading about their relationship is almost painful.

It's difficult to make an emotional investment in such a depressing character. It's equally difficult to generate sympathy for someone who doomed herself by refusing for so long to accept the obvious truth about her condition, and by failing to follow the simple rule that would have assured her continued freedom: don't work as a cook. Still, Keane gave me the sense of knowing Mary, of understanding her as a person, and she makes an effort to humanize Mary in the final chapters. Had the novel been written with less detachment, Keane might have been able to make me care more about Mary. Perhaps understanding her is enough (it would be in a work of nonfiction), but a truly great novel would have made me feel more empathy for Mary, despite her disagreeable nature.

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