This was an interesting and quick read. I actually felt sorry for Mary in the beginning because she honestly seemed to be ignorant about the fact that she was causing so many deaths. Toward the end I wasn't so sure of her ignorance about the fact that she was killing people. I might be interested in reading more about Mary after reading this book.

While I found Mary's story to be interesting, the alternating story about the narrator was a bit boring. Thankfully, his parts of the story were short. I kept thinking that his story would be connected to Mary's in some way later in the book, but this never happened -- unless I misses something. ( )

Title:
The Ballad of Typhoid Mary
Author:
FEDERSPEIL, J F
Publisher:
Ballantyne
Format:
Paperback
BCID:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5...
No. of pages:
180
First sentence:
In the early morning hours of January 11, 1868, a ship emerged from the whirling snow outside New York Harbour and remained unnoticed by the harbour authorities until after she had violated the three-mile limit.

Many thanks to bodesoda for running a BookRing with this one which appealed to me in a strange, romantic way. I know (or should that be 'knew'?) nothing about Typhoid Mary and think I will now spend many hours trying to work out which parts of this book are fiction and which grounded in fact. Federspeil has woven magic with this book although I found the sub-plot of the narrator's asides interruptions rather than valued additions - and that's why I'm scoring it 9/10 and not 10/10.

This is the story of a woman known as Mary Mallon or, popularly, Typhoid Mary. We first meet her as a young girl aboard an immigrant ship entering New York Harbour. She is smuggled past immigration control by, of all people, a Doctor who becomes her first victim. And so Mary travels around New York City working as a cook and moving on when Typhoid strikes. There are happy times, romance and adventure in her life but the whole is tinged with a haunting sadness. This really was a time when life was 'brutish and short.'

I would read more by this author and recommend this book to others. ( )