Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

 ‘’Year of Wonders’ carries absolute conviction as an evocation of place and mood. It has a vivid imaginative truth, and is beautifully written.’ Hilary Mantel

Our Book of the Month is Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders, which 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 the hope of outrunning the plague or do they stay? 

The lord of the manor and his family pack and leave. The rector, Michael Mompellion, argues forcefully that the villagers should stay put, isolate themselves from neighbouring 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.

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian / American author, and this was her first novel. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her second novel, 'March'.