Fever (1793)

Fever (1793)
Laurie Halse Anderson
243 pages of 243 pages
Historic Fiction

The yellow eyes on the book cover are a sign
of a person that is infected with yellow fever.

Quote from the book: “’Pharmacists and coffin makers are the only people who profit from this plague.’ ’Don’t forget the thieves,’ I added.” (Page 194) This is a part of a conversation between Matilda Cook, the protagonist, and Eliza, the black woman who helped in the coffeehouse and during the epidemic helped Matilda to survive. I chose this quote because it symbolizes how bad the situation really was. Pharmacists would charge extremely high prices for medicine needed for fever victims, coffin makers were required from the higher class people to bury their loved ones, and the thieves had an easy job: they broke into abandoned houses or houses where only weak fever victims lived that couldn't  defend themselves, and stole everything they found, often leaving the house in a huge mess.

The Story: Matilda Cook, is a fourteen year old girl who lived through the outburst of yellow fever during 1793 in Philadelphia. Mattie, how most people call her, has to help her mum in their coffeehouse together with her grandfather, a general who fought against the British, because her dad died long ago. But then, everything changes. Matilda’s friend Polly dies of yellow fever, and soon everywhere around her, people are suffering. Her life gets even worse, when her mum falls ill, too. Against Matilda’s will, she has to go to the countryside together with her grandfather, but the farmers who transport them, turn against them and leave them alone miles from the next city- without any clothes or food!               
 Mattie’s granddad catches a summer grippe and while she wants to take care of him, she gets sick with yellow fever herself. Luckily, her grandfather regains his strength and carries her to Brook Hill’s improvised hospital, where French doctors cure Matilda.    
Now, she wants to go back to her mum, but there is only one problem: when Mattie and her grandfather arrive at their house, she is nowhere to be found and robbers stole all their food and broke most of the furniture of the coffeehouse. Mattie tries to take care of herself and her grandpa, because his sickness got worse again. When two other thieves come to steal again, one of them slams Matilda’s grandfather’s head against the floor, and he dies in Matilda’s arms. Now Matilda is without food and a grandpa, her mum is missing and she has no clue what to do. She starts wandering around in the streets of Philadelphia, until she finds Eliza, the black cook the worked for her mum in the coffeehouse. Eliza takes care of Matilda and lets her live with her, her brother and her brother’s children, and in return, Matilda tries to help wherever she can. One day, the kids fall ill, and it seems like the world is going to end and the frost that would end the fever is never going to come. But on October 23^rd, the frost finally arrives and ends everything. Mattie’s mum comes back; she went to look after Matilda, and the coffeehouse gets reopened. People that fled to the country come back to Philadelphia, shops get reopened and although the cemeteries overflow with corpses, everyone is happy that it’s finally over.

I really enjoyed this book, although I would never want to live at that time; the writing style was very interesting and I liked that at the beginning of every chapter was a quote about yellow fever, written by people of that time (doctors, but also victims). It was also very interesting to find out about yellow fever, and it really helped that the author had some facts about it at the end of the book. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in past diseases and epidemics, in earlier life. It’s a well written novel with many details and a unique way of writing.