Schnaucl's review
The Last Town on Earth: A Novel
by Thomas Mullen
Schnaucl's review
The Last Town on Earth: A Novel by Thomas Mullen
Schnaucl's review
rating:
bookshelves:
fiction,
historical_fiction,
library,
read_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 history classes, there was WWI, there were the Wobblies, the Spanish Flu and it's hard to remember that they were all going on at the same time. As was Suffrage.
I'm curious why he chose to set it in Washington since he's never lived there. Maybe it was the thought that you could have a town that isolated in the West but not in the more settled East. Reading this book really made me want to read more about the history of the state. I knew a little about the Wobblies from a 9th grade Social Studies c...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 history classes, there was WWI, there were the Wobblies, the Spanish Flu and it's hard to remember that they were all going on at the same time. As was Suffrage.
I'm curious why he chose to set it in Washington since he's never lived there. Maybe it was the thought that you could have a town that isolated in the West but not in the more settled East. Reading this book really made me want to read more about the history of the state. I knew a little about the Wobblies from a 9th grade Social Studies c...more
