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Book Review of The Last Town on Earth

The Last Town on Earth
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Helpful Score: 2


A few years ago, I read John Barry's non-fiction account of the 1918 flu pandemic. This novel about a fictional town (logging community, actually) which quarantined itself to keep the flu out, draws on accounts of other towns actually taking such precautions.

The imaginative combination of various historical events (the flu, unions, the Great War, suffrage, etc.) and complex characters (although it's pretty clear who the "good guys" are most of the time) make this worth reading.