The Last Town on Earth: A Novel
by Thomas Mullen
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
historical fiction readers
This was suggested for our library book groups by the County Health Department. If a book group chose to read this, the department would contribute the books, and send a pandemic health department expert to the group. We chose this for our November read.
Jessica, our pandemic expert, was excited about this opportunity to work with the library, and the greater visibility the department could gain by partnering with the library. She'd heard the author on NPR, and started planning from there. ...more
Jessica, our pandemic expert, was excited about this opportunity to work with the library, and the greater visibility the department could gain by partnering with the library. She'd heard the author on NPR, and started planning from there. ...more
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Read in September, 2008
I read _The Last Town on Earth_ for the BGSU Common Reading Experience Book Selection Committee. Well, actually I read it twice: first, a very quick skim and hated, then again very closely and realized it actually could be a pretty good CRE choice.
In terms of exploring values, this book is perfect. Virtually all the main characters and some of the secondary characters are confronted by values choices at some point in this book, and the author writes the book in a clear enough way that even r...more
In terms of exploring values, this book is perfect. Virtually all the main characters and some of the secondary characters are confronted by values choices at some point in this book, and the author writes the book in a clear enough way that even r...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
airline passengers and Thomas Mullen.
Thomas Mullen
The Last Town on Earth
New York: Random House, 2007.
404 pp. $13.95
978-0-8129-7592-5
Thomas Mullen has engineered an environment never before seen in America, and promptly sullies it with two-dimensional characters and unoriginal themes; they are, in fact, listed on the back cover: “love, patriotism, community, family, friendship, and [survival:].” Perhaps next time Mullen should find a publisher that doesn't tailor shortcuts for middle-schoolers assigned a Big Essay:...more
The Last Town on Earth
New York: Random House, 2007.
404 pp. $13.95
978-0-8129-7592-5
Thomas Mullen has engineered an environment never before seen in America, and promptly sullies it with two-dimensional characters and unoriginal themes; they are, in fact, listed on the back cover: “love, patriotism, community, family, friendship, and [survival:].” Perhaps next time Mullen should find a publisher that doesn't tailor shortcuts for middle-schoolers assigned a Big Essay:...more
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Read in September, 2007
This is the thirteenth book I read on my commute (though technically I also read a lot of it on a vacation train ride from DC to NYC). Unlucky thirteen, perhaps, because it's a well-written book but man is it depressing.
Last Town on Earth is a heavy bit of historical fiction written very recently but shedding light on life in the American northwest in the early 1900s, the days of World War I and the Great Influenza Pandemic. A small logging town decides to quarantine itself against outside...more
Last Town on Earth is a heavy bit of historical fiction written very recently but shedding light on life in the American northwest in the early 1900s, the days of World War I and the Great Influenza Pandemic. A small logging town decides to quarantine itself against outside...more
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Read in April, 2007
The story takes place at the end of the first World War when the Spanish Flu is in full force. The small, fictional mill town of Commonwealth, WA decides to quarantine itself to keep the flu out. Then a soldier shows up at the gates.
I thought it was mostly well written, especially for a first novel. Thomas Mullen did a good job of giving a feel for the times. It's always amazing to me how things are treated as separate events in his...more
I thought it was mostly well written, especially for a first novel. Thomas Mullen did a good job of giving a feel for the times. It's always amazing to me how things are treated as separate events in his...more
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Read in January, 2008
This book has a lot going for it - a very dramatic time (the influenza epidemic of 1918), a very dramatic premise (a town that tries to fend off sickness by isolating itself), and - if possible - even more dramatic situations as the story progresses (what happens when two different strangers try to enter the self-quarantined town). So I should have loved it. And I really wanted to. But somehow, I didn't, and it was kind of an effort to finish. But it was our book group's selection last month...more
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Read in February, 2008
Set amongst the 1918 flu pandemic, the trail end of the first world war, and the violence of the emerging labor movement, this book tells the tale of the fictional Northwestern town of Commonwealth which attempts to keep itself healthy by creating a reverse quarantine meant to keep out people with the deadly flu and protect the town. This is an intriguing story with interesting themes and definitely a page-turner at the end.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy Thomas Mullen's writing style. He sh...more
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy Thomas Mullen's writing style. He sh...more
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The books I tend to pick up are focused on smartly written, fully developed characters. Often the plots are mundane, but disguised in elegant or witty writing so you don't mind that nothing much is happening. So I was a surprised by how much I enjoyed this plot-driven novel in which, simply put, there's a lot going on. You see the national and local government, the family, and the individual respond to the issues of the day, including the flu epidemic, the US entry into World War I, and the p...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
nobody
I only managed a few chapters so it wouldn't be fair to assign a rating. The prologue had some muscle, but after that, it felt like Mullen had done some research on the epidemic and the labor troubles and thought they'd be good subjects for a novel. He was right about that, at least.
Quibbles: unrealistic dialogue, cliches to describe characters("domineering patriarch"), info dumping and exposition, use of the word "preternatural", saying that no one knew if Commonwealth...more
Quibbles: unrealistic dialogue, cliches to describe characters("domineering patriarch"), info dumping and exposition, use of the word "preternatural", saying that no one knew if Commonwealth...more
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Read in August, 2007
Sigh. I don't read much historical fiction but the subject (influenza / WWI / Pacific Northwest) sounded interesting, and I guess I was hoping it would be just a good story beautifully written -- like "Snow Falling On Cedars". But the writing was just so... simple (but not Hemingway "simple"). I almost felt like I was reading a book geared towards a grade-schooler. For example, there is an adolescent romance in the book, and it is related with such "golly gee" a...more
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this novel is an exploration of what happens to a community of people during the spanish flu epidemic of 1918. this was interesting to me because my knowledge of this time period was almost non-existant. how many people today even know there was a spanish flu epidemic, or that during wwi people fought over the u.s.'s involvement in it, or of the union/management struggles of the time? these are all covered in this novel, which asks "what if a town quarantined itself, cutting itself off f...more
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Read in September, 2008
This is an engaging book raising a lot of interesting questions from a largely forgotten chapter of our national history (the flu pandemic of 1918). The parallels with current times, obviously, aren't drawn in the novel, but they're easy to spot: conflicts between industry and workers (not really a parallel; ours is the same story, with a different cast of characters), conflicts between isolationism and engagement, conflicts between civil liberties and fear.
Mullen is too thoughtful to preach...more
Mullen is too thoughtful to preach...more
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Read in August, 2008
recommended to Heidi by:
Elena C.
Interesting (although occasionally medically incorrect) follow-up to the non-fictional "The Great Influenza", which I also recently read. While I can't say that I sympathized much with the mostly underdeveloped characters, it was a well-thought out study of what happens to a community when it tries to isolate itself from the world at large. However, the author failed to address the obvious conflict that arose: the ideologies the pacifist/conscientious objectors of the town rapidly di...more
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The idea behind this book is extremely interesting, even if the writing style doesn't quite give it the oomph to make it memorable. Based on a true incident, The Last Town on Earth profiles a fictional town called Commonwealth, Washington that quarantined itself FROM the outside world to keep the killer Spanish Influenza of 1918 from reaching its townspeople. Among the many characters are millworkers, suffragists, and union organizers that took part in the Everett Massacre. When a long WW...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
WWI and historical fiction enthusiasts
I read Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic, as well as Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It, so was interested in the premise of this work of historical fiction. During the Spanish flu epidemic, a small logging town quarantines itself from the world, refusing to allow anyone into the village.
The story is interesting, weaving German spies, conscientious objectors, and the political climate of WWI into the underlying s...more
The story is interesting, weaving German spies, conscientious objectors, and the political climate of WWI into the underlying s...more
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Read in September, 2008
I picked this book up because I was intrigued by the synopsis and I wasn't disappointed. It is the story of a small logging town in Washington state that decides to place a quarantine on their town - no one is to go in or out. The Spanish influenza is raging all around them yet no one is sick in their town and they want to keep it that way. Guards are placed at the entrance to the town, but then a starving stranger shows up. The author gives us a sense of life in 1918 with World War I and the...more
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Read in October, 2007
I've done some reading about pandemics and wondered what if...this story is about a town that tries to totally cut itself off from everything and everyone that might threaten to bring the as-yet-not-there influeza (set in 1918).
Interesting history, characters I cared about, it scared the crap out of me, to tell you the truth, but I really liked the aspects related to the labor movement and the pandemic.
Makes one think about how we might react if the avian flu or whatever disaster we kee...more
Interesting history, characters I cared about, it scared the crap out of me, to tell you the truth, but I really liked the aspects related to the labor movement and the pandemic.
Makes one think about how we might react if the avian flu or whatever disaster we kee...more
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Read in November, 2007
When I was a child, my father used to tell me about this outbreak of the 'flu during WWI that "killed more people than the war, that year." The fact that Dad was born 15 years after the war ended but talked about it like he was there was a testimony to the fact the impact of the outbreak was significant in our small, Western town.
This book fictionalizes the 1919 Spanish 'flu epidemic in an intriguing way: what if (like Gunnison, Colorado) a town cut themselves off in order to a...more
This book fictionalizes the 1919 Spanish 'flu epidemic in an intriguing way: what if (like Gunnison, Colorado) a town cut themselves off in order to a...more
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Read in February, 2008
I found this book intriguing. I wasn't really drawn to the characters but the historic situation certainly inspires questions. The novel is basically about a small logging town in Washington state, which decides to quarantine itself in an effort to keep its residents safe from the Spanish flu pandemic rocking the world. While the characters didn't do much for me, there were several haunting scenes: a doctor and two nurses entering the home of a family ravaged by the flu, a soldier and the son of...more
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