Fever Year

Fever Year is a history of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic told in a graphic novel format.  Don Brown published this book in 2019, the newest addition to his disaster novels. Brown has previously written about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Great American Dust Bowl, and about Syrian refugees.

Fever Year is a short, 51 page, book on the 1918 flu pandemic.  It is written as a straight history book.  There are no characters or plot.  The author tells the reader how the pandemic began,  how it worked its way around the globe and how people reacted to it.  It is eerily similar to our current COVID-19 pandemic. With governments arresting those who violated the quarantine it provides some details concerning what may be next for us today.  This quarantine was a real quarantine.  It was not a stay-at-home order where you could leave your home to buy food and prescriptions. People had to do without. Those who needed medication for pre-existing illnesses died. Masks were required to be worn and there were several health care hucksters pedaling drugs that did not ease the symptoms of the flu.  Sound familiar?

I liked this book.  It gives us a history of an event that we should know about and inside are clues to what can happen again.  Humans being humans, it does not matter how technologically advanced society is. We will act in desperate ways.  5 out of 5 stars.