An inspirational novel of influenza, love, life, and death

摘要

There is an unnerving appositeness about Myla Goldberg's novel, coming as it does amid anxieties about the possibility of a global pandemic of avian influenza, for it is about the great influenza pandemic of 1918or at least, about one poignant and beautifully observed corner of it, in which nevertheless the whole meaning of that fatal episode is captured.But as with any good novel, Goldberg's tale is about more than its central theme alone It is about Boston in the early 20th century, about its Irish immigrant community, about work, poverty, hope, love, marriage, grief, courage, and, of course, death The novel's chief character is Lydia Kilkenny, one of those literary creations who live in the mind, a graceful being around whom the disaster of the epidemic swirls like a hurricane, and who in the end regains her life by offering it up in the quest for medical solutions to influenza's ravages.