THE FEVERED WORLD

Andrews’ historical novel tells the story of a father and daughter on the front lines of a pandemic.

Readers first meet Dr. Lorne Miller in 1918 as people in his rural Kansas county start to sicken and die from an unexplained illness. His daughter, Helen, has just come home from nursing school in Boston, hoping to figure out what’s next for her life. What neither of them see coming is a crisis that will change their family, and the world, forever. The narrative covers the full two-year span of the era’s influenza pandemic, alternating viewpoints between Lorne, as he strives to secure research funding in search of a vaccine while pushing for quarantine at the highest levels, and Helen, as she travels to France to care for American soldiers there, fighting in World War I. Lorne works with an array of important historical medical figures, including Drs. William H. Park and Anna Wessels Williams, while Helen dives into a career that she didn’t initially think she wanted. A strong feminism centers Helen’s character, and pivotal moments hinge on whether she will keep equivocating or take advantage of the opportunity and independence that nursing offers her. The author balances intimate and scientific details about nursing uniforms, the repurposing of bathing wagons for sleeping quarters, the fresh flowers delivered from London to the field hospital against the painful specifics of the origin and treatment of gas gangrene, the crowded tenements that allowed influenza to spread, and the pulmonary hemorrhaging and cyanosis that typifies the disease. Overall, it feels like a masterful blend of works by historical mystery author Jacqueline Winspear and historian John M. Barry. Although this book was written before the Covid-19 pandemic, readers will find clear parallels in the story’s false starts, haphazard public health response, and supply-chain havoc as people search for the disease’s cause and cure, and the conflicting perspectives of Helen and Lorne allow readers to see it all with fresh eyes.

A vivid drama set at the intersection of WWI and a global health crisis.