Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks
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Book Summary Information
Author: Geraldine BrooksEdition: Paperback
Published: 2002-04-30
ISBN: 0142001430
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Year of Wonders
Book Review: Beware the Black Death!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Year of Wonders" is a fantastic book by Geraldine Brooks that chronicles a severe outbreak of the Bubonic plague in an isolated English village during the year 1666. The story revolves around Anna Frith, a housemaid who loses her two young children to the plague and emerges as a heroine during this terrible time. Anna assists the town rector and his wife, Michael and Elinor Mompellion, and together they tend to the sick and dying while also trying to keep the peace in their crippled village. As numerous people succumb to the terrible illness or face other challenges, Anna manages to find the strength within herself to carry on.
I was blown away by this book. The story is based on the real town of Eyam, which experienced a massive plague outbreak in the 1600s. Amazingly, "Year of Wonders" is the author's very first novel, and it's filled with memorable characters, challenging moral dilemmas, and incredible stories of loss, love, and determination.
The final 40 pages of the book were rather disappointing, as I was horrified to see what eventually became of Michael's character, and I though Anna's story came to a very rushed and somewhat unfathomable conclusion. However, those shortcomings weren't enough to spoil this novel for me. "Year of Wonders" is one of the best, most engaging books I've read in a long time. I highly recommend it.
Summary of Year of Wonders
Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders describes the 17th-century plague that is carried from London to a small Derbyshire village by an itinerant tailor. As villagers begin, one by one, to die, the rest face a choice: do they flee their village in hope of outrunning the plague or do they stay? The lord of the manor and his family pack up and leave. The rector, Michael Mompellion, argues forcefully that the villagers should stay put, isolate themselves from neighboring towns and villages, and prevent the contagion from spreading. His oratory wins the day and the village turns in on itself. Cocooned from the outside world and ravaged by the disease, its inhabitants struggle to retain their humanity in the face of the disaster. The narrator, the young widow Anna Frith, is one of the few who succeeds. With Mompellion and his wife, Elinor, she tends to the dying and battles to prevent her fellow villagers from descending into drink, violence, and superstition. All is complicated by the intense, inexpressible feelings she develops for both the rector and his wife. Year of Wonders sometimes seems anachronistic as historical fiction; Anna and Mompellion occasionally appear to be modern sensibilities unaccountably transferred to 17th-century Derbyshire. However, there is no mistaking the power of Brooks's imagination or the skill with which she constructs her story of ordinary people struggling to cope with extraordinary circumstances. --Nick Rennison, Amazon.co.ukWhen an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."
Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. Written with stunning emotional intelligence and introducing "an inspiring heroine" (The Wall Street Journal), Brooks blends love and learning, loss and renewal into a spellbinding and unforgettable read.
"The novel glitters . . . A deep imaginative engagement with how people are changed by catastrophe." (The New Yorker)
"Year of Wonders is a vividly imagined and strangely consoling tale of hope in a time of despair." (O, The Oprah Magazine)
"Brooks proves a gifted storyteller as she subtly reveals how ignorance, hatred and mistrust can be as deadly as any virus. . . . Year of Wonders is itself a wonder." (People )
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