Parker's review
The Last Town on Earth: A Novel by Thomas Mullen
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 easy answers here, nor does he present unconflicted heroes or villains. His book is populated with identifiable, often likeable characters who make mistakes, or are simply forced into situations where they must act out their convictions (or lack thereof) for good or ill. By making our issues real problems about which his characters must take real action, Mullen does more to show us multiple sides of our own issues than our own debates about them might.
Mullen is too thoughtful to preach easy answers here, nor does he present unconflicted heroes or villains. His book is populated with identifiable, often likeable characters who make mistakes, or are simply forced into situations where they must act out their convictions (or lack thereof) for good or ill. By making our issues real problems about which his characters must take real action, Mullen does more to show us multiple sides of our own issues than our own debates about them might.
