The Plague and I

Betty MacDonald Memoirs #2

by Betty MacDonald

Tuberculosis. A terrifying word, as terrifying then as cancer is now. It meant entering a sanatorium for treatment, leaving her family, her children. And what if she did not recover? Hardly the basis for comedy, one would suppose. And one would be wrong. Betty MacDonald always had the ability to face up to adversity -- and heaven knows she had enough in her life -- so after the initial shock had passed, she proceeded to laugh at her illness, the other patients, the nurses, the doctors, and -- chiefly -- herself. Humor was her greatest medicine, right up to the day she left the sanatorium, cured. Of course she had her bad moments when despair and tragedy underlying what she saw and heard refused to be pushed into the background, but she had the grit and wit to rise above it. The result is a lively, cheerful and most funny book. In fact, it's a tonic.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Humor, Biography, History, Biography Memoir, Medical

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

MacDonald was born Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard in Boulder, Colorado. Her official birth date is given as March 26, 1908, although federal census returns seem to indicate 1907.

Her family moved to the north slope of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood in 1918, moving to the Laurelhurst neighborhood a year later and finally settling in the Roosevelt neighborhood in 1922, where she graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1924.

MacDonald married Robert Eugene Heskett (1895–1951) at age 20 in July 1927; they lived on a chicken farm in the Olympic Peninsula's Chimacum Valley, near Center and a few miles south of Port Townsend. She left Heskett in 1931 and returned to Seattle, where she worked at a variety of jobs to support their daughters Anne and Joan; after the divorce the ex-spouses had virtually no contact.

She spent nine months at Firland Sanatorium near Seattle in 1937–1938 for treatment of tuberculosis. On April 24, 1942 she married Donald C. MacDonald (1910–1975) and moved to Vashon Island, where she wrote most of her books. The MacDonalds moved to California's Carmel Valley in 1956.

MacDonald rose to fame when her first book, The Egg and I, was published in 1945. It was a bestseller and was translated into 20 languages. Based on her life on the Chimacum Valley chicken farm, the books introduced the characters Ma and Pa Kettle, who also were featured in the movie version of The Egg and I. The characters become so popular a series of nine more films were made featuring them. In the film of The Egg and I, made in 1947, MacDonald was played by Claudette Colbert. Her husband (simply called "Bob" in the book) was called "Bob MacDonald" in the film, as studio executives were keen not to raise the matter of MacDonald's divorce in the public consciousness. He was played by Fred MacMurray.
Although the book was a critical and popular success at publication, in the 1970s it was criticized for its stereotypical treatment of Native Americans. It had also been claimed that it "spawned a perception of Washington as a land of eccentric country bumpkins like Ma and Pa Kettle."

MacDonald's defenders point out that in the context of the 1940s such stereotyping was far more acceptable. MacDonald faced two lawsuits: by members of a family who claimed she had based the Kettles on them, and by a man who claimed he was the model for the Indian character Crowbar. One lawsuit was settled out of court, while the second went to trial in February 1951. The plaintiffs did not prevail, although the judge indicated he felt they had shown that some of the claims of defamation had merit.

MacDonald also published three other semi-autobiographical books: Anybody Can Do Anything, recounting her life in the Depression trying to find work; The Plague and I, describing her nine-month stay at the Firlands tuberculosis sanitarium; and Onions in the Stew, about her life on Vashon Island with her second husband and daughters during the war years. She also wrote the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series of children's books and another children's book, entitled Nancy and Plum. A posthumous collection of her writings, entitled Who Me?, was later released.[citation needed]
MacDonald died in Seattle of uterine cancer on February 7, 1958

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

My enjoyment of this book is very much due to the authors tone and sense of humor. Tuberculosis was a terrible scourge that cost many their lives. Many were sent to sanitarium which is where MacDonald is sent when she is diagnosed. Stays were often indeterminate, some stayed for years, some for months and of course many never left. The reader receives a day by day accounting in the lives of these patients. The authors pithy observations and comments, worries, fears are candidly stated and her insightful comments on the women with which she shares a room are honest oftentimes amusing. She formed many friendships during her stay, and in a few cases continued these after her release.

She details the treatment, most of which I had never heard. In one they removed the patients ribs from one side of the body. Windows open in all rooms regardless if the weather. Many patients would get wet from the wind and rain pouring in the open windows. Freezing cold, allowed only a serviceable amount not linen, blankets, they would wear multiple layers of clothes, even for sleeping.
That anyone was cured was unbelievable, yet intentions were good and treatments were experimental and at times barbaric.

We come to know Betty, her life inside and outside the hospital. Her family, glimpses of her personal life and the trouble she had adjusting after her hospital stay. It is a glimpse of a thankfully bygone era of a disease that effected so many and that few knew his to treat. It was much like Covid is to us now. A new disease, not completely understood, with a trial and error type of treatment.

[Andy Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, moving, original, fascinating.

[Bee Ridgway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book while trawling through a charity shop. It had a beat up old green-and-white Penguin binding, and having a bit of a secret love for plague stories -- like _A Journal of the Plague Year_ -- I bought it for something like 10 p without even cracking it open to get a taste. Turns out it is one of my favorite books of all time, all space. This woman was a comic genius. This is the memoir of a year she spent laid up in a Tuberculosis sanitarium outside of Seattle Washington, sometime in the 1940s. She wasn't supposed to move, she wasn't supposed to talk . . . and hilarity ensued. Oh yes, a book about recovering from TB is, indeed, one of the funniest books in the English language. After reading this I went out and found all her other books for adults. The Egg and I was her big hit -- they even made a movie out of it. It's ok -- amusing rather than hilarious, and quite racist. Anybody Can Do Anything is a memoir about her sisters and her mother surviving the Depression by taking any job at all and simply claiming they could do it. It's pretty wonderful. But The Plague and I is simply the best. This is my first Goodreads review and I thought I would start with a book I am 100% sure of -- and one where the author cannot care what I say. RIP, Betty -- you were one hilarious woman!

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was younger, I used to think Tuberculosis would be a great disease to have. Then you could go to a sanitorium for a "rest cure", which sounded great to me. Lying in the sun, reading, being taken care of, eating huge amounts of nourishing food....good times.

Then I read Magic Mountain, about a boy who goes to visit a sanitorium in the Swiss Alps, and ends up staying 7 years. Not good, and a chore to read. To balance that out, I decided to read this one by the author of The Egg and I, a comedy of sorts about her 9 month stay at The Pines, a sanitorium in Washington state.

Let's just say I'm cured now. No more TB daydreams. Even Betty MacDonald's humor can't make some things better.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betty MacDonald was a national treasure, and I can't believe that her books don't get more attention. The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books are fantastic, both clever and funny, all while teaching kids to be kind, respectful, and to pick their shiz up off the dang floor!

This is the second of her memoirs, after The Egg and I, and it details the year she spent in a sanatorium trying to recover from tuberculosis. Her descriptions of the other patients, of the strange rules, of the prison guard like nurses, are fabulous. Right now as I read this, I am sheltering in my home during a global pandemic (COVID-19, if Goodreads still exists after all the crap that happening right now), and honestly reading about someone who is sick but getting better, and who has such a sense of humor, was refreshing!

[ALLEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comic novels: this is one of the better ones. As late as the mid-Twentieth Century, tuberculosis ("TB" or "the white plague") was something to be feared and reviled. In popular mythology, a healthy redhead like Betty MacDonald should never have developed TB, but she did, an experience she likens to being broadsided by a bus. Typically, MacDonald (THE EGG AND I) turned her tragedy into triumph, and the world of comic novels is better for it. This funny 1951 follow-up in the style of THE EGG AND I recounts that fateful year (1938) well. Sanitarium life was cleaner than the family chicken ranch, and infinitely more urban, but no less loaded with eccentrics and self-appointed authority figures. Recommended.

[Kristine Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Plague and I is the second memoir by Betty MacDonald, and listening to it really transports the reader back to the 30s, when times were simpler yet also more complicated in some ways. In this story, MacDonald recalls her childhood and then her tuberculosis diagnosis, and the majority of the story focuses on her treatment at a sanitarium called The Pines.

Readers, just like MacDonald herself, will find it amusing and ironic that in growing up, her father followed whatever health trends of the moment to keep his kids healthy including ten glasses of water a day, cold water baths, and brisk walks outside, even in sub-zero temperatures. Even as signs of the disease started to appear, there was mostly patronizing denial that MacDonald might be seriously ill. Once diagnosed, MacDonald admitted that it was a relief to find out she was "really sick instead of ambition-less and indolent."

Prior to being admitted to The Pines, MacDonald was told there was a long waiting list, that the cost was $35-$50 per week, and that she could expect it to take a year. With MacDonald earning $115 per month, and since she was the mother to young children, the doctor accepted her right away and told her not to worry about paying. Rather, he suggested that one day when she is healthy, she consider helping someone else pay for treatment. What a startling contrast to modern healthcare procedures.

To help keep the readers placed in the setting of the times, there are musical interludes between chapters that hearken back to the sounds of the 30s. With MacDonald’s period in The Pines being 1938-1939, there is language reflecting the racism of the times -- and sad reminders that similar attitudes persist in our society nearly eighty years later.

MacDonald's anecdotes, analogies, and figurative language are outstanding, and how I wish I had been able to capture more. But there's the downside of listening to an audio book while driving (anyone have a tip for that?) At The Pines, it seems the method to healing the patients was completely break them down to nothing and re-build them. As if having TB wasn't enough of a punishment, patients existed under the strictest of circumstances without any warmth (emotionally or physically). Even when a patient was capable, she wasn't permitted to do anything but eat and rest. MacDonald described the first three months at The Pines saying patients "existed as embryos carefully fed and cared for by the mother hospital. Alive but not living."

Life at The Pines was nearly military in its operation, and I had to remind myself that patients were there voluntarily and could leave at any time. But they didn't! They were constantly moved, given new roommates, and always expected to follow the rules, the rules, the RULES! One of many ironies is that The Pines staff wants patients to be obedient but often didn't explicitly state the rules. Readers feel MacDonald's frustrations as well as her small victories -- like when she finally is allowed to fill her own hot water bottle or urinate in a bathroom and not a bedpan.

While in The Pines, MacDonald encounters a wide variety of people and Heather Henderson provides excellent narration to bring them all distinctly to life via MacDonald's expert descriptive writing. Henderson nails MacDonald's wit and sarcasm and perfectly paces the storytelling.

In the end, it's no spoiler that MacDonald exits The Pines plump, healthy, and happy, but she finds there are new adjustments and transitions to be made. There are a few holes in the story, which I imagine would be filled had I read/listened to the first of her memoirs, The Egg and I, and I intend to do just that, as well as read/listen to the next two memoirs, Anybody Can Do Anything and Onions in the Stew.

Thank you to The Audiobookworm and Post Hypnotic Press for providing me the audio file in exchange for my honest review -- the only kind I give -- and many thanks to the estate of Betty MacDonald for allowing the publication of this audio book. This review plus special features on Hall Ways Blog for book views, reviews, and news you can use - or not. http://kristinehallways.blogspot.com/...

[V. Briceland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's be honest: Betty MacDonald's chronicle of a year spent in a sanatorium recuperating from tuberculosis in the days before antibiotics sounds like an unlikely candidate for a humorous memoir.

The Plague and I proves, however, the author's gift of weaving homestyle insight with her funny upbringing and her cock-eyed view of the craziness around her. MacDonald has a genuine gift of interjecting a highly personal and relatable touch into the quite literally antiseptic environment of 'The Pines'—in reality, the former Firlands Sanitarium of Shoreline, Washington—and making the story of her illness and recovery as funny, if not funnier, than her other three books for adults.

The Plague and I provides not only an interesting look into a type of medicine no longer practiced, but gives a startlingly vivid glimpse into the racial tensions of pre-World War II Seattle. MacDonald's sanatorium friend, Kimi, wrote under her real name of Monica Sone a memoir (Nisei Daughter) of growing up torn between American culture and her Japanese-American upbringing, and of her family's internment during the subsequent war. It's a credit to MacDonald that she's able to confront these issues and not let them sidetrack her main intent. Namely, to show that in a life-threatening illness, a positive (and realistic) outlook and a dose of humor can be as important medicines as anything dispensed by a pharmacist.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Betty MacDonald's "The Egg and I" many years ago and still recall with delight her hilarious adventures while chicken farming on the Olympic Peninsula in the 30's. Only recently did I become aware of "The Plague and I", the story of her time spent in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Seattle in the 40's. Her wry insights into the staff, her fellow patients and her own condition keep this history from the depressing tale it could have been. It was also an eye opener to read in 2010 exactly how strictly and fervently TB was treated in the 40's. I knew lots of bedrest was involved but had no idea that patients in Seattle lived year round in rooms with the windows wide open 24/7 with no heat and the rain blowing in, keeping their bedclothes in perpetual dampness. There were also medical procedures that were nothing short of barbaric. I never imagined that a book about tuberculosis treatment could be both humorous and interesting but Betty MacDonald is gifted with the wit and compassion to make it so.

[MAP · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Betty McDonald writes about her experience with t.b. and being in a sanatorium for 9 months -- at the time the only way they had to cure a patient, and hardly a guaranteed one.

Like The Egg and I, I started out really into this book, and by the time it was over I was as ready as Betty was for her to go home. However, the look into life in a sanatorium in the 1930s, when there was no known cure for tb and doctors barely even understood what it was, is certainly an interesting slice of life.

Also: I read my uni library version of this book, which was personally inscribed by Betty herself, to "Bernice, who has been through this in all its phases -- Love, Betty McDonald" The two doctors who the book is dedicated to have also signed the book. And glued to the inside cover is Betty McDonald's obituary. So apparently the original owner of this book knew her. (This is why library books are so much cooler than store-bought ones)

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review soon! 🩻🫁🩺

[Shiloah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was thoroughly enraptured in this memoir. I learned so much about TB and it’s treatments before antibiotics. What suffering was had before this valuable medication was discovered. I enjoyed her rendition of all the personalities in the sanitarium. I felt cold alongside her. I laughed and cried. I love her sense of humor. I listened to this one and the narrator really made this story come alive. I must read all her other memoirs.

2) Second reading a month later after finishing all four memoirs. I adore her sense of humor and candidness as she went through such a difficult time. I find this memoir funny and inspiring.

3) Third reading. 7/2024 A long move overseas. We’re four years out from a global pandemic. In addition, I’ve had 11 children and lots of bed rest, and occasional other illness that required rest. I identify so much with her story and yet it is so different. I still feel all the feels reading it.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read MacDonald’s book “The Egg and I” back in 1947. I re-read it again last year. This book “The Plague and I” was originally published in 1948. It tells the story of MacDonald’s diagnosis and year stay in a Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Seattle in 1938-39. This is my first time reading “The Plague and I”; somehow I missed reading it years ago.

I did my working rotation in a TB Sanatorium in 1961; by 1963 all the TB hospitals were closed as antibiotics were so successful in treating the disease. It just took a few years to work out the most effective combination of antibiotics. It was like a miracle.

It was devastating to get TB and have to take a year out of your life to be in a TB hospital. TB was a contagious disease and the patient had to be kept away from society until they could no longer transmit the disease. The reader should also remember that TB was and is still a big killer. It is amazing that MacDonald dealt with the situation is such a positive manner and with such humor. The facility MacDonald was in mixed all the races and ethnic group together which was unusual for the time, which Macdonald turned into funny stories. MacDonald provides good descriptions about the various treatments and surgery used at that time. The book does provide a glimpse into medical history. The end of the book MacDonald reveals the difficulties a person had in adjusting to society again after being confined to a Sanatorium for one or more years.

The book is well written in a straight forward, easy to read manner with lots of humor. Who said reading a memoir is boring. Heather Henderson does an excellent job narrating the book.

[Robyn Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who could believe a place for curing a disease could be so absolutely horrific? The author of The Egg and I (about life on a chicken farm), the vivacious Betty MacDonald, is devastated to find she has TB when she's living with her family after divorcing her first husband. She's worried about the future for her two girls and, also, how she's going to pay to go to a sanitorium.
Luckily, depending on how you look at it, her brother-in-law ,finds a place she can go to for free because she is a mother.
The staff at The Pines are unbendingly stiff and unfriendly and the treatments seem to leave a lot to be desired, including 24 hour bed rest, no talking, no laughing, a superfluity of fresh air with windows open in the freezing winters and cold hot water bottles disoensed with grim smiles from the staff.
Betty survived this horrendous regime by finding humour in every situation and befriending a Japanese girl with an amazingly dry wit to match Betty's.
If I could find a copy of The Egg and I, I'd buy it without hesitation.
And her other books as well.

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the age of thirty, the author was diagnosed with TB, then a common illness, whose only cure was bed rest in a dedicated sanatorium. This is Betty's hilarious account of the time she spent under the strict regime and rest cure at The Pines, a san for low income patients in America's North West in the 1940s/50s.

I found this book in a charity shop and just had to have it, having some dim memories of having read it over thirty years ago. It did not disappoint. I' ve been in bed with flu for a week or so, and this book made me laugh out loud. While I'mglad that the world has moved on since the days of TB sanatoria, I can totally empathise with Betty's 'fault' of 'having the wrong atiitude' for that's always been my own problem, too! I believe it is connected to having a sense of humour.

For the record, I've also enjoyed The Egg and I, and Anyone can do Anything ,by the same author, and am about to tstart reading her final volume of memoirs, Onions in the Stew, which is available on Project Gutenberg.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir about a Seattle tuberculosis sanatorium. Super fascinating to learn about how they used to treat TB before antibiotics were widespread

[Jamie Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1937 Betty MacDonald was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, and this is an engrossing memoir about the nine months she spent in a state-funded sanatorium near Seattle. Despite the many miseries she describes, this is written with a great deal of humor.

One of the treatments for tuberculosis was complete and utter bed rest, and she spent her first three months in perpetually cold rooms surrounded by coughing, gasping strangers, forbidden books or music or conversation or an extra blanket or trips to the bathroom. Patients were expected to be obedient and deferential and grateful, and were threatened with expulsion for any violations. Visitation was extremely limited: particularly her children were only allowed to visit once a month for 10 minutes, and couldn't touch her.

(I'm not sure if the relentless cold or the lack of books would be more detrimental to my health. One female patient notes bitterly that the men on bedrest were allowed to read.)

MacDonald describes in great detail the deliberately impersonal treatment and the utter tyranny of the medical staff (if the nurse says you can't have hot water, you can't have it) but appreciates that they restored her health. The food was good and plentiful, however, since they were trying to fatten up underweight TB patients. It worked, and by the end of her stay, when she was finally allowed to read, MacDonald was “only interested in stories about large plump women with tuberculosis”.

She draws a vivid picture of the life at the sanatorium, which was “rife with gossip and rumors…. always about poor little patients who were mistreated by the staff.” She writes hilariously about her fellow patients: “Being suddenly thrust with perfect strangers and forced to live with them without any privacy at all for twenty-four-hour period after twenty-four-hour period is as much a problem in adjustment as a planned marriage…. From my stay at The Pines I learned that a stiff test for friendship is: ‘Would she be pleasant to have t.b. with?’”

MacDonald's first memoir, The Egg and I, was tainted by the racist remarks she made about Native Americans, but here she displays nothing of the same attitude concerning the non-white patients she met in the sanatorium.

[Pam Lindholm-levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book because 1) I loved "The Egg and I," and 2) I worked in TB bacteriology for many years. Today's treatment is so much different from MacDonald's pre-antibiotic era rest-cure. She observes and reports serious issues in the most lighthearted way. She puts us right into the scene. Her characterization of other patients and the staff are perfect.
Because her children, mother, and sisters did not have TB, and because the children were well cared for by the rest of the family, MacDonald could focus on her own health and cure. Contrast this with another book I read part of, "Living in the Shadow of Death," emphasizing that in most of the 19th century there were no facilities for chronic disease, hence infected women stayed home, tried to keep their lives together, probably infected other people---especially their children---and really never got well.

[Julie Ambrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came upon Betty MacDonald when a friend gave me 'The Egg and I'; however it wasn't until I was given 'The Plague and I' that I realised how much I loved her work, even though her work is now many decades old. In 'The Plague and I' the contrast between direness (tuberculosis: she's shut away in a sanitorium) and deft, light writing is what makes her work so brilliant. Whoever would have thought an account of tuberculosis and the cruelty of its 'cure' could be so funny to read? There's a sparkle to Betty MacDonald's writing (and a subversiveness to its content and contrasts) that should appeal to anyone regardless of era.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live in a much different world now! This book takes us back to the times of the Great Depression and what was going on in the author's world. This book however is not depressing. The author shares humor about her situation.

As you guys may know one of my favorite authors, Ann M. Martin recently redid one of the Miss Piggle Wiggle books and I really enjoyed that. The books were written by Betty McDonald, author of the first book and so many more.

This is another book narrated by the talented Heather Henderson. I feel like she does a good job of capturing the elements of the story and bringing them to life.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.

[Susann · Rating 4 out of 5]

"At Bed-rest, the librarian took orders for books one week and the next wheeled in a cart of books and told you that yours was not among them."

While I would never wish tb on Betty MacDonald, I'm very happy that she chose to chronicle her experiences in her sanatorium. My only complaint is that the book is so appealing that I inhaled it all too fast and didn't stop to savor it. Clearly I need to learn some Discipline from Granite Eyes and Gravy Face.

I still haven't read Anybody Can Do Anything. It's nice to know that it's out there waiting for me.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my happiest used book finds ever was a copy of this great book. I'd read it as a teenager, and remembered it as completely, totally, laugh out loud until you cry funny, and happily, it was just as funny on re-reading. You would not think a book about a TB ward would be that funny, but it is. Betty MacDonald writes about unusual characters in a way I don't think I've ever seen done better, and all her time in the ward let her get to know some very unique people. Her observations are amazing. Absolutely worth a read, or a re-read, or more!

[Cwalsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In addition to being fun due to MacDonalds excellent writing, this book also is a wonderful explanation of what treatment for tuberculosis was like before the advent of effective medications. Set in a sanitorium in Seattle in the 1930's, the story fouses in part on MacDonald's roommates. One of my favorite quotes -
"From my stay at The Pines I learned that a stiff test for friendship is: 'Would she be pleasant to have t.b. with?'"

[Viane Eichelberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

It doesn't seem like a book of this type would be so entertaining and funny, but I laughed throughout the book. Betty Macdonald, who also authored the Mrs. PiggleWiggle books tells of the 8 1/2 months she spent in a sanitarium recovering from TB. Her sense of humor is incredible in the face of such a serious disease. It was also interesting to get a glimpse of how TB was treated in those days.

[J.C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, but found the first few chapters to be the most captivating and humorous, while the sanitarium just dries up most of the humor, for me anyway. Still, it's a solid read, and MacDonald has a great sense of humor. The book also got me researching sanitariums, so i ended up watching a bunch of retro films on youtube. yay for antibiotics!

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to imagine a book about TB being funny. But Betty Bard McDonald's dead-on-the-money descriptions of her fellow patients and staff and her keen eye for the absurdities of the sanitorium's bureaucracy were hilarious. One of my favorites that I re-read every year or so.

[Jenine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this on our bookshelves, left by my husband's grandmother when she was alive. Such a brilliant, hilarious book. I never knew tuberculosis could be funny, but Betty MacDonald did it. And it's one of those books full of little quotes and catch phrases that come back to you over time.

[DaNae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tuberculosis is no laughing matter, particularly back in the 1930s. But in Betty’s MacDonalds hands you can still have a good time even if the ‘cure’ seems more torturous than the disease. After contracting TB, Betty is housed in a TB sanitarium for most of a year. It was both fascinating and horrifying to witness the extent that the medical profession would go to achieve wellness before antibiotics. Laying flat on your back for 23 hours a day. No talking. No activity. No reading. NO READING! It sounded so awful but MacDonald’s wry and snarky delivery gave up loads to laugh at.

Her characterization of the other patients were strongly realized. Particularly Kimmy, the Japanese-American teenager, with the most wicked sense of humor. A trip to Wikipedia midway through the book let me know that Kimmy’s real name was Monica Sone and she went on to become a writer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6.... I immediately put her book on my TBR.

This year John Green has a book out about TB. I’m so nor interested in reading about disease, but now I’m being tempted.

I emphatically let it be known I do not like memoirs. Most seem like elevated navel-gazing. After rereading THE EGG AND I a couple years ago, and remembering that I have indeed enjoyed a memoir or two from my past, I made a plan to read Betty MacDonalds other books. I’m looking forward to the others. Perhaps I can also fit in a few rereads of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

[Britt Sandoval · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard about this book while listening to “This Podcast Will Kill You” TB episode and had to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised by the humor and the storyline. You get so invested in the characters and their outcomes. I learned so much about TB and how it used to be managed, and honestly was blown away by some of the treatments they used. If you are interested in medical stuff with a good storyline, this one is a good read!

[Krisette Spangler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel follows the year the author had tuberculosis. She spent the year in a sanatorium and relates her adventures during her time there. It was fascinating and often comical to read.