Goodreads | Heidi's review

Heidi's review

The Last Town on Earth: A Novel
by Thomas Mullen

[close]

blog this review

Copy/paste the text below into your blog.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76336.The_Last_Town_on_Earth_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Last Town on Earth: A Novel" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1170890306m/76336.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76336.The_Last_Town_on_Earth_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Last Town on Earth: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/43391.Thomas_Mullen">Thomas Mullen</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9592591?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars 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. 
 
 We readers enjoyed the background history we learned, not only about the flu epidemic, but about the unions, the Wobblies, feminists, and their influence in the Pacific Northwest. As a group, we felt the characters and plot failed to live up to the subject. (It's unusual for us all to share the same opinion, to be fair our numbers were small just before the Thanksgiving holiday.) I tend to enjoy a plot that is driven by interesting characters. This seemed more to us like the author had a plot in mind, and created characters to fill those roles...not so believable to us. One person summed it up, that it seemed to be written with the movie in mind. She already knew the actors: Tommy Lee Jones for the town's leader, Jude Law for Graham, the stiff-upper-lipped young man just trying to protect his family. I was a little annoyed at the implication that an attempt to create a utopia was doomed due to human nature. Another felt the book started out well, but then got too simplistic. 
 
 One of the first things Jessica told us is that this story is a good illustration that quarantines don't work. I'd been wondering about the effectiveness of the masks. Wouldn't a sick person contaminating the outside of a healthy person's mask still manage to spread the disease? Just so. It would be more effective to have sick people wear the masks. The 1918 flu epidemic was what they would call a "category 5" flu. The world hasn't seen such a flu since. There were some global pandemics in the 50s and 60s, but not like this. Recently it was discovered that this flu did indeed come from a bird. (They got samples from bodies frozen in the permafrost.) 
 
 The bird flu existing now is difficult to pass from person to person, but a few cases have. As to whether there will be a bird flu that is easily passed...it's a crap shoot. Jessica told us plans would trigger if "anywhere in the world a confirmed cluster of a new flu" has a certain "fatality ratio." Plans can't include a vaccine really, because we can't predict the strain of a pandemic. Part of the problem in 1918, the US government so controlled the media that communities couldn't learn needed details about what worked in other communities. 
 
 We learned that in our county, the "community mitigation strategies" for a category 5 pandemic come from the best practices that cities and towns took in 1918. Portland happened to utilize these, and didn't fare quite so badly. 
 
 These practices are: multiple social distancing strategies; cancelling school classes for up to 3 months; urging businesses to stagger shifts so less people are working at one time; if an individual is sick, urging families to stay home voluntarily.
 
 Challenges faced in a pandemic? Jessica said, "The closing of the schools: teens get antsy." [spoiler alert..that's not too far off for the failure of the quarantine in the book.] Also, the global nature of businesses. If the health department seeks cooperation in the closing of the local mall, they may have to call owners in China. Jessica was clear that our county doesn't have the authority to enforce martial law, nor did it seem she wished for it. She emphasized that within the department they work towards consensus. Her overall message seemed to be that best practices involved cooperation, not authoritarianism.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/425549?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Heidi's review
rating:
bookshelves: fiction
recommended 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.

We readers enjoyed the background history we learned, not only about the flu epidemic, but about the unions, the Wobblies, feminists, and their influence in the Pacific Northwest. As a group, we felt the characters and plot failed to live up to the subject. (It's unusual for us all to share the same opinion, to be fair our numbers were small just before the Thanksgiving holiday.) I tend to enjoy a plot that is driven by interesting characters. This seemed more to us like the author had a plot...more 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.

We readers enjoyed the background history we learned, not only about the flu epidemic, but about the unions, the Wobblies, feminists, and their influence in the Pacific Northwest. As a group, we felt the characters and plot failed to live up to the subject. (It's unusual for us all to share the same opinion, to be fair our numbers were small just before the Thanksgiving holiday.) I tend to enjoy a plot that is driven by interesting characters. This seemed more to us like the author had a plot in mind, and created characters to fill those roles...not so believable to us. One person summed it up, that it seemed to be written with the movie in mind. She already knew the actors: Tommy Lee Jones for the town's leader, Jude Law for Graham, the stiff-upper-lipped young man just trying to protect his family. I was a little annoyed at the implication that an attempt to create a utopia was doomed due to human nature. Another felt the book started out well, but then got too simplistic.

One of the first things Jessica told us is that this story is a good illustration that quarantines don't work. I'd been wondering about the effectiveness of the masks. Wouldn't a sick person contaminating the outside of a healthy person's mask still manage to spread the disease? Just so. It would be more effective to have sick people wear the masks. The 1918 flu epidemic was what they would call a "category 5" flu. The world hasn't seen such a flu since. There were some global pandemics in the 50s and 60s, but not like this. Recently it was discovered that this flu did indeed come from a bird. (They got samples from bodies frozen in the permafrost.)

The bird flu existing now is difficult to pass from person to person, but a few cases have. As to whether there will be a bird flu that is easily passed...it's a crap shoot. Jessica told us plans would trigger if "anywhere in the world a confirmed cluster of a new flu" has a certain "fatality ratio." Plans can't include a vaccine really, because we can't predict the strain of a pandemic. Part of the problem in 1918, the US government so controlled the media that communities couldn't learn needed details about what worked in other communities.

We learned that in our county, the "community mitigation strategies" for a category 5 pandemic come from the best practices that cities and towns took in 1918. Portland happened to utilize these, and didn't fare quite so badly.

These practices are: multiple social distancing strategies; cancelling school classes for up to 3 months; urging businesses to stagger shifts so less people are working at one time; if an individual is sick, urging families to stay home voluntarily.

Challenges faced in a pandemic? Jessica said, "The closing of the schools: teens get antsy." [spoiler alert..that's not too far off for the failure of the quarantine in the book.] Also, the global nature of businesses. If the health department seeks cooperation in the closing of the local mall, they may have to call owners in China. Jessica was clear that our county doesn't have the authority to enforce martial law, nor did it seem she wished for it. She emphasized that within the department they work towards consensus. Her overall message seemed to be that best practices involved cooperation, not authoritarianism.
...less

Like this review? yes flag

comments (showing 0-0 of 0)

newest »

date

all Heidi's books »