Fever by Mary Beth Keane

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Whelp – I finished this book right in time to finish out 2025!
I’ve always been intrigued by the Typhoid Mary story but never actually sat down to learn the details. This historical fiction telling the tale of Mary Mallon was intriguing, following her life from the time she immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland, up through the end of her life.
I knew that she was called Typhoid Mary due to the fact that she caused a bunch of people to get sick…but I never realized she had never actually had the disease. It appears that she had been exposed in Ireland, tending to those around her who got sick, but she never caught it. She was an asymptomatic carrier…unknowingly getting those around her sick…with several dying. When she is apprehended and brought to the hospital for testing, her fight and denial is riveting. She clearly doesn’t think she has done anything wrong…other than being the cook in several homes where people have gotten sick and/or died from Typhoid. She is submitted to constant testing in a hospital at first and is then sent to North Brother Island for 3 years. At first she’s stuck in the typhoid ward in the hospital there, but the staff build her a little shack that she lives in during her stay. She’s still expected to submit to various tests weekly, but she is not just sitting back and taking it. Mary appeals to numerous attorneys and eventually finds one who takes her case and helps her gain her freedom…on the condition that she not cook for anyone again.
The next several years are difficult for Mary, who was hoping to reconcile with her man, only to find he had moved in with another woman while she was on North Brother Island and was preparing to marry her. Mary also doesn’t know what to do. She loves to cook and has to navigate life once more.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and Mary ends up on North Brother Island for the rest of her life.
If you’ve ever been interested in the woman behind Typhoid Mary, I highly recommend checking this one out.



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