Wickett's Remedy

by Myla Goldberg

Lydia Kilkenny is eager to move beyond her South Boston childhood, and when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy Boston Brahmin who plans to become a doctor, her future seems assured. That path changes when Henry abandons his medical studies and enlists Lydia to help him invent a mail-order medicine called Wickett's Remedy. Then the 1918 influenza epidemic sweeps through Boston, and in a world turned upside down Lydia must forge her own path through the tragedy unfolding around her. As she secures work as a nurse at a curious island medical station conducting human research into the disease, Henry's former business partner steals the formula for Wickett's Remedy to create for himself a new future, trying--and almost succeeding--to erase the past he is leaving behind.

Alive with narrative ingenuity, and tinged with humor as well as sorrow, this inspired recreation of a forgotten era powerfully reminds us how much individual voices matter--in history and in life.
(back cover)

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Book Club, Audiobook, Adult Fiction, Novels

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Myla Goldberg is the bestselling author of Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy, and The False Friendas well as a children's book, Catching the Moon.

Reviews

[Geraldine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished listening to this after a few road trips. I enjoyed "Bee Season" much more--I think Goldberg bit off more than she could chew with this one. Her first novel was an intense study of a dysfunctional family, and her focus and writing talent really shone. "Wickett's Remedy" tried to be way too many things--history, social critique, epic, experimental combination of fiction and primary sources. The effect diluted the main character, Lydia, and the reader never really knows enough about her to care what happens to her, much less the lesser characters. In trying to master so many different styles and voices, most of the characters come off as either inauthentic, or in Lydia's case, just bland and prissy. (She's supposed to have worked hard to transform herself, but a few years behind the counter at a department store aren't enough to get a Southie girl with an elementary school education to start saying things like "indecorous" and "sang-froid"; meanwhile, everyone else from her neighborhood speaks in uniform Street Urchin With a Heart of Gold.) The book's flaws were really highlighted by the irritating book on tape reading, though--the Greek chorus of dead voices that shows up as marginalia in the novel are unskimmable in audio format, and become distracting and intrustive. And don't get me started on the cheesy sound effects, gah. There were passages of beautiful writing, especially the early descriptions of Boston and Lydia's internal monologue during her marriage, and I actually loved the very end, but the center did not hold. While I'll look for her next book, I hope Goldberg goes back to a more "Bee Season" theme and style.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel tells the story of Lydia, who longs to experience more of the world than the Southie neighborhood of Boston. She gets a job in a department store across the river, where she eventually meets and marries Henry Wickett, an odd man who has an idea of how to cure people. And so Wickett's Remedy is born.

This is a novel about the Spanish influenza epidemic that hit the United States during the First World War, and about a young woman who is determined to do what she can to help care for influenza patients despite her lack of medical training. Lydia is a fantastic character to follow as she works to adapt to whatever circumstances she finds herself in and the story is superbly researched. Goldberg also plays with the format of the novel, adding sidenotes where various characters comment on the events taking place, as well as articles, vignettes and even a secondary storyline taking place at the end of each chapter. Goldberg's writing is very good and the way she plays with structure fits well with the novel as a whole. I look forward to reading more by her.

[Pat Cal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was absolutely charming. The writing was intelligent and had depth, yet wasn't too flowery. The plot went quietly for a while, and then things started to come together at the end. I enjoyed hearing the comments of those who had passed, as they were fiesty and very human. (Notice, we never heard Lydia's comments.) I also enjoyed how the historical background made dry facts come alive.

[H · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book a better review, as I wanted to like it. But the story was too slow to start, the device of having "the dead" speak to the reader in margin notes was ultimately distracting and did not add to the narrative, the interweaved story told of QD soda and the meandering of its founder felt forced, and the main character remained remote and unknown.

[Tobinsfavorite · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book spent a number of years hovering near the top of my reading list, but it kept getting bumped by other books until finally I just borrowed it from the library even though I was reading something else. For some reason, I thought this book would be about Lydia and Henry and the Remedy during the 1918 flu epidemic, but not very far into the book it became obvious that the book would not be about that at all. At first, I was disappointed, but the unexpected book was very good, engrossing, and quite a fast read.

Some people have found the marginal notes distracting, but they're quite easy to deal with after a few pages. The chapters, distinct yet unnumbered, each end with fragmentary content: letters, news articles, undefined conversations; these can make the story seem fragmented, but the main narrative remains strictly chronological and uncomplicated. These other fragments give historical context or, in some cases, information that becomes more relevant as the reader continues.

There is a lot dreadful withing its covers, but the book is not one of despair, neither is it graphic. The book is about loss and memory, and to a lesser (or not) degree, about how small choices carry larger repercussions.

I know this book isn't for everyone, and yet, I can't quite see how that could be true.

[Holli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book better than the reviewer below. I was very interested in the history of the flu epidemic and felt the author did a good job in bringing the period to life. I also liked the margin comments by the dead—reminded me of the graveyard scene in Our Town. They demonstrated how there are always many sides to a story, depending on our perspective. They added a bit of humor and a reminder not to take ourselves too seriously. I question the reviewer’s statement that we never truly know Lydia. I felt that I knew her in that I experienced her growth from a girl into a mature woman, finding her way through grief and sadness. Ultimately, the nursing job allowed her to reach beyond herself to help others and to find love again. I also liked the way the author juxtaposed her story with the development of QD Soda. I didn’t like QD Soda, which was Goldberg’s point. I had a very bad cold while reading this book and have to admit that I worried some about my health while reading the passages about the flu!

From Publishers Weekly
The author of the bestselling Bee Season returns with an accomplished but peculiarly tensionless historical novel that follows the shifting fortunes of a young Irish-American woman. Raised in tough turn-of-the-century South Boston, Lydia Kilkenny works as a shopgirl at a fancy downtown department store, where she meets shy, hypochondriacal medical student Henry Wickett. After a brief courtship, the two marry (Henry down, Lydia decidedly up) in 1914. Henry quits school to promote his eponymous remedy, whose putative healing powers have less to do with the tasty brew that Lydia concocts than with the personal letters that Henry pens to each buyer. After failing to pass the army physical as the U.S. enters WWI, Henry quickly, dramatically dies of influenza, and Lydia returns to Southie, where she watches friends, neighbors and her beloved brother die in the 1918 epidemic. A flu study that employs human subjects is being conducted on Boston Harbor's Gallups Island; lonely Lydia signs on as a nurse's assistant, and there finds a smidgen of hope and a chance at a happier future. A pastiche of other voices deepens her story: chapters close with snippets from contemporary newspapers, conversations among soldiers and documents revealing the surprising fate of Wickett's Remedy. And the dead offer margin commentary—by turns wistful, tender and corrective (and occasionally annoying). Yet as well-researched, polished and poignant as the book is, Goldberg never quite locks in her characters' mindsets, and sometimes seems adrift amid period detritus. While readers will admire Lydia, they may not feel they ever truly know her.

[Louise Behrendt Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this book caught my eye on BookBub, because it concerns, in part, the 1918 Flu Epidemic. And since this book was published about 15 years ago I was interested in what it had to say, concerning present times. True enough, part of the book was about that epidemic, told through the eyes of Lydia, a young woman from the South side of Boston. But before the story gets there, this book is about Lydia's marriage to medical student Henry Wickett, whose letters to Lydia prompted their romance and marriage. Convinced he has the power of positive, healing persuasion Henry dreams up something he calls Wickett's Remedy, comprised of a phony tincture sold with personal written communication with Henry. Needing some sort of bottled liquid with which to pair his letters , he asks Lydia to come up with a formula and she does; it came to her in a dream. Of course Wickett's Remedy is successful only to the extent it opens up correspondence with Henry; otherwise it falls flat. Nonetheless Henry attracts the attention of a young business partner, Quentin Driscoll, . . . and then Henry gets the flu and dies. Business partner uses the "remedy" formula to develop what becomes a soda with a cult-like following; "QDSoda." The rest of the story about Driscoll and the soda are though, for the most part, relegated to snippets throughout the rest of the book, sometimes in the form of letters and newspaper articles, with brief mention of Lydia's request that she be compensated or recognized for her significant contribution . . . such recognition does, I think, come towards the end of the book... I think? although when it does it's very unsatisfying.
But Wickett's Remedy and/or QD Soda does not, it would seem, have anything to do with the rest of the story except to the extent that the rest of the story concerns Lydia. After Henry's death Lydia moves back to her family home along with her large contingent of brothers; but then favorite brother Michael--who has just joined the Army, it being WW I and all--also dies of the flu, as do other neighbors and friends. Lydia becomes a volunteer at the local hospital, witnessing first hand the sheer volume of those who have become sick and died. She sees an advertisement for "nursing" assistants at what turns out to be a medical experiment on nearby Gallups Island, and secures the job despite her lack of a nursing degree. Her trip to the boat to take her there describes an eerie scene of a deserted Boston, with people wearing masks, schools and businesses shut down, and the hustle and bustle just . . . gone. Although this book was written 15 years ago, this part of the book reminded me all too well of what it's like to go downtown in my city right now. . . It turns out the Gallups experiment--which actually happened, I subsequently learned--utilized "volunteers" from a nearby military jail, Deer Island, who were intentionally injected with snot, saliva and blood from flu victims to see if doctors could discern how the flu was transmitted and how to treat it/vaccinate against it. Turns out the only one who gets the flu is a young doctor, who subsequently dies on the island. His autopsy there reveals astonishing and never-before seen changes in his lungs. Again, the parallels to present time were striking. . . And in real life the Gallups experiments turned out the same. But back to the book. While the Gallups events were so very interesting, the book just . . . stops there, after the doctor dies, and Lydia falls in love with one of the volunteers. That's it. End of story. What about the tie in to Wickett's Remedy or QD Soda? Nothing. I thought at least there could be reference to flu victims getting some sort of relief from drinking the soda, but. Nope. And to top it off, the book is sprinkled with little "asides," coming in the middle of the page in bold type on my e-version of the book, providing outsider comments on Lydia's narration of events. Are these the voices of ghosts? Or what? And what purpose did they serve to the story? Other than annoyance, none I could see. So . . . the 1918 Flu part of the book gets 3.5 stars. But the 1 star I gave to the "other" book about the remedy and the soda drags the average down to 2.

[William Adam Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down. I like Goldberg's writing. She is able to create believable characters and she draws the reader in with her story telling abilities. The effect that the Spanish Influenza had on global health is a topic which holds a great deal of intrigue for me. The protagonist Lydia is a compelling character and the story of her marriage to Henry was well set up.

What didn't work for me was the second half of the book wasn't as interesting for me as the first half. When Lydia went to Gallups Island, I felt the story took a downturn. Also, the secondary plot of the founding of QD soda wasn't sufficiently integrated into the main plot for me. Whenever Goldberg turned to the events of the QD soda story at the end of each chapter, I felt uninterested in what was happening.

I'm glad I read this novel as I think Goldberg did well crafting a story of America during the period of the Spanish Influenza. I just didn't feel all the choices she made with plotting or creating secondary characters that supported Lydia in carrying the story.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may be a two-and-a-half stars for me. Goldberg can write, for sure, and she's crafted an interesting, evolving young woman in Lydia. The details about Southie seem true to me; there are vivid scenes of an immigrant's life and Lydia's crossing to Washington Street where she wears a shirtwaist and works with other girls in a thriving department store. The scene of the party on the landing just before her brother leaves for WWI is convincing and lively. Also, the story of Gallups Island where the government used volunteers in attempts at developing a vaccine for the raging 1918 epidemic -- well, that's a story on it's own, and one I was unfamiliar with. The problem with this short novel is it attempts to do more than it can. As others have noted, the margin notes don't work. They are not all by dead people, and after a while I couldn't understand how they added to the narrative, so I gave up reading them and stuck with Lydia. The whole Wickett's Remedy story line had promise in the beginning -- this was the age of American hucksterism, nostrums, and powders -- but Goldberg killed off Wickett and the continuing plot line with QD Soda was as much of a mess and distraction as the marginalia. So, there. I liked the character of Lydia, Goldberg's writing, and the history.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grabbed this because I liked Bee Season well enough and it cost $3 and I had nothing to read. I was well-rewarded for my $3 gamble. One thing that made the book extra-resonant with me was that I started reading it just before I got a bad head cold, so the whole time I was reading about the Spanish Influenza outbreak, I was sick as well. It was weird. I'm not recommending contracting the flu before you read, though.

This novel isn't structured like most others; Goldberg uses margin notes to correct misremembrances (real word? don't know; don't care; you know what i mean) of the protagonist. The secondary plot is woven in through newspaper articles and other ephemera. Part of the enjoyment of reading the book is figuring out where all the secondary information fits in with the main story; it's very satisfying when you get it.

One reason I liked Bee Season was the word choice and turn of phrase Goldberg has such a way with, and this book retained that quality.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was lukewarm for Myla Goldberg's first novel and the same was true for her second. It's not that she's bad at writing. It's that something about the form of her novels really rubs me the wrong way. This one worked well when it was actually being a novel. But all the little extra scenes that left the narrative were distracting and didn't add much. Also the dead serving as a peanut gallery of sorts, always tossing in their two cents on what actually happened, similarly falls flat.

It's a shame because, as I said, she's not bad at writing. Just maybe not at putting novels together. Also, the audiobook version of this is dreadful. Goldberg reads herself and she is just fine during the normal/novel sections. But the extra bits are strange, the additional readers and voices are strange, and all the background noises and music are super annoying.

[Pam Patton]

I nearly set this book aside because I found one of the main characters profoundly irritating but I stuck with it, and I'm so glad I did. Though I found the marginalia a bit precious at times, I appreciated the skill in which Goldberg wove in multiple points of view. And I enjoyed the way the lovely story was told, in many ways, by inference. The chapters skip through time, and include letters written in the characters' futures. So between the story itself, the marginal comments, and the letters, a complete lifetime is told, even though the basic narrative covers only a few years.

And what a lovely story. Love, grief, family, social and ethnic history. I read it over two days, and it's one of those books that makes you sad at the end because you want to spend more time with the characters.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded down.
This was a bit of a disappointment. It is ostensibly about the Spanish Flu pandemic and it’s effects on Boston and particularly Lydia Kilkenny Wickett, a young Irish woman from South Boston. She wants to get out of Southie, and eventually meets and marries Henry Wickett, a med student who doesn’t want to be a doctor. Instead he invents Wickett’s Remedy, an innocuous serum who’s real healing powers come from the letters Henry writes with each order. As the Spanish Flu ravages Boston and changes their lives, Lydia finds her calling in tending to the sick.

There is a concurrent storyline about Q D Soda, and it’s owner, Quentin Driscoll, who was once Henry Wickett’s partner. These passages came at the end of every chapter, and to be honest, they made no sense to me and I stopped reading them.

There are also marginalia notes throughout the story, sort of a Greek chorus or peanut gallery, commenting on the story. These are apparently people who have died yet want to clarify aspects of the story as written. I found these to be very distracting and stopped reading them also. I just didn’t see the point in having them.

It seemed to me that the author couldn’t make up her mind as to what she wanted to write, so she threw everything in the mix. If she had just concentrated on Lydia’s story, and maybe fleshed our the characters more, or expounded more on the effects of the Spanish Flu on the community, it would have been a better book. By just reading Lydia’s story, the book had a much better flow. Maybe I lost some of the essence of the story by skipping parts, but I never would have finished it if I read them. They were too frustrating. I did read the last margin note, and it made a nice coda to the story. So there’s that.

I can’t recommend this book. For me, there are better books out there.

[Erica Behnke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started to read this shortly after our state shutdown due to Covid-19 to see how the country handled the Spanish Flu back in 1918. This book is just based on the Boston area, but adds a little to what the rest of the world is doing. It's true... history does repeat itself.

[Sue Cronin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lost this book with about 30 pages left to read— agh!

Found my book! 3.5 stars . I think my Boston friends would like it.

[Kylie Jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn’t have picked a better time than 2020 to read this one.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very lyrical book. Interesting set of characters, interesting set of events, but what I loved most was the interplay between memory and reality and the visual representation of that interplay. The format of the book is unique--the margins on the sides of the pages are probably an inch or two wider than most books, and in that space Goldberg creates a quiet, whispering voice that twines around the main narrative. The font is different and smaller and the recollections are no longer than a couple sentences, sometimes containing one voice and sometimes two or three, but in that small space the voices--the reader figures out who they are but I won't spoil it--comment on the story and either contradict or elaborate on the narrative. Goldberg also mixes in personal letters and public "newspaper articles" and plays with the past (in which the story is being told) and the present (which we see through these "supplementary" newsletters included.) This narrative and visual richness expands and deepens the story in a fascinating way--the reader is observing the story from behind the shoulder of the main character and yet observing from the distance of time and memory as well.

[Graceann · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thoroughly original and engaging novel. At first it seemed like a fairly conventional love story, but I soon realized there was more to it than that. How rare, and how refreshing.

Lydia and Henry fall in love and begin their marriage in Boston during WWI. Henry is studying to be a doctor, but it's soon clear that he isn't content to follow the path that life and his father have set out for him.

What is initially disconcerting and eventually fascinating about reading Wickett's Remedy is that the text is routinely interrupted by comments in the margins correcting Lydia's recollections or adding to the story in some way. Also interspersed are articles from the period regarding the War and the emerging influenza epidemic that followed, and a secondary story that eventually dovetails beautifully with the main one. The fun of reading Wickett's Remedy was in discovering that some seemingly unrelated segment I'd read fifty pages ago now had significance to the plot. Very clever in construction, and artful in execution. I loved every page of it, and hated to see it end.

[Sheila · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book to learn more about the 1918-1919 flu epidemic. While I did learn more about the epidemic, I was not happy with the style of writing. I found the anecdotes written in the margins of each page disrupted the flow of the story. I finally stopped reading them. There were letters written throughout the book but it took me a long time to figure out who was actually writing them. I'm not sure what they added to the story. Lydia marries a young man, Henry who is in medical school but after they have been married for a short while, Henry decides to quit medical school and develop Wicketts Remedy which he sells by mail. Then the 1918 flu epidemic hits Boston. Lydia decides to travel to Gallops Island to help with a research study to determine how the flu is spread. While that actually happened in history, it seemed to me, the author just decided to end the book abruptly.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I turned to this after reading Goldberg's insanely successful 'Bee Season' and found it a bit of a struggle to get into this novel. Again dark topics abound with the Influenza epidemic and WWI, but there is a lot of human interest to the characters Goldberg places in this period of Boston's history.

[Erika · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this on audio. Myla Goldberg I think you might have the most annoying voice in the world. The actual story was good but I couldn't like the character very much because of her prissy little voice. The weird stuff in the middle was terrible. The dead people speaking - weird. The newspaper reports and soldiers talking - they all had the same exact voice. An annoying one.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed by this. It has all the makings of my ideal novel: tenement housing, romance, Spanish influenza. You know. But it was so boring I couldn't bring myself to finish it! Everyone says Bee Season is really good, maybe I just ordered wrong.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

Umm. Somehow I have a lot of thoughts but few words at the moment. I guess I still can’t decide how I feel about this book.

I bought Wickett’s Remedy at least ten years ago; I picked up a used paperback copy for ninety-nine cents. I’ve tried several times over the years to read it and, though it seemed promising, I couldn’t get past the first few pages.

When I started it again this time, post-Covid (or during Covid, to some extent, I guess) I thought it would be even more interesting, given the current pandemic. I promised myself that I’d finish it this time.

I love historical fiction and Goldberg’s telling of this story was certainly well-written and creative, which I found to be both positive and negative. In addition to the main plot, she employed the use of notes in the margins, false documents, and snippets of conversation to add to the overall story…except that these additions were sometimes confusing and usually wholly unnecessary. I love quirky books and characters and am all for creativity, but it has to work; while I didn’t mind the marginalia as much as others I personally think that there are entire storylines that could’ve been eliminated. The remedy/QD soda part would have worked well as a subplot if there had been any real plot to it at all; instead it fizzles (yes, I went there!) out and has a very unsatisfying ending. Finally, Goldberg spends a LOT of time describing in very minute detail things that are, frankly, irrelevant and boring. It would have served her better to spend these words and our time truly developing her characters-had she done that then perhaps she would have realized that her words and the language she used were completely incongruent with a young woman at the turn of the 20th century who had an eighth grade education. It simply wasn’t believable and made me feel like she was just trying too hard to sound smart at the detriment of the story itself.

All of that said, apparently I should be grateful that I read the paperback version, given what other reviews have to say about the hardback and audiobook versions.

[Sandra Frey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first word that comes to mind for this book is "strange."

The good points:

- Goldberg is a gifted writer.
- The fairly intimate look at how the early-1900s Spanish flu epidemic may have been experienced in Boston is interesting, particularly for a Boston-based reader post-2020.
- The asides from The Dead in the margins are differentiating and, at least in the early going, intriguing.

But:

- Ultimately, the asides don't add much, except (I guess) a reminder of just how many were being lost amid simultaneous war and disease.
- The book's title and much of its structure stem from a plot point that you eventually realize was pretty much exhausted in the first quarter: this seriously bizarre idea that main character Lydia's first husband has to start a business selling a fake medicine and real, "healing" correspondence with people who feel nonspecifically ill. I'm sorry, what? He's going to become penpals with anyone who bites, regardless of their problems? And he sees this as a viable business model?
- So, I found myself thinking that Lydia's husband was a childlike idiot, and Lydia started to annoy me by association and through her immediate agreement to help him. Fortunately, the correspondence business conked out early, but I still ended up feeling that Lydia had little to offer as a character apart from (of course) a heart of gold. Despite making some bold choices in her life, she presented as kind of a pre-Women's Lib stereotype: all earnestness and compassion and sense of duty, with little actual personality.
- The plot just kind of keeps going until it stops. An author's note in my edition begins by saying that it is difficult to know when a novel is finished. I first interpreted this as a confession that Goldberg had no idea how to end the story, but having read the whole note, I now think she meant it's hard to know when to stop tinkering with the whole manuscript. Fair enough, but...I still wonder if she just had no idea how to end the story, based on how she ended the story.

[JA J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having been very interested in the Spanish Flu pandemic for several years, earlier this year i read a scholarly history combined with recollections of the hunt for the actual genome. After finishing, i remembered i had Wickett's Remedy on the stack waiting. Although i give the book a thumb's up, it is qualified by the fact that there is a lot of back and forth and in and out and totally unnecessary side snippets as well as a couple (really one it turns out in the end) minor stories wound through. I solved this by :
1. After the first chapter, totally ignoring the little side insertions (yes, they are actually printed to the sides of the main story text) as they were unneeded and usually had nothing to do with the story anyway. Written as an ode to victorian writers i would suppose, Ms. Goldberg demonstrates that this is an artifice best left on the pages of history.
2. The major sub-plot was only of incidental interest, so i skipped much of that too. I was able to deduce in just a couple of pages what it was about, and believe me, it didn't add to the story.
3. Yet another minor plot wound around and through the book, but luckily it was usually only a couple of pages long each time it came up and in the end became part of #2.
Ms. Goldberg could really really use some education on how to SEAMLESSLY interweave plots and subplots without jerkiness and totally losing the reader's focus. Despite all these flaws (and they are many) the main story is enthralling and filled with feeling. I was hooked from beginning to end, except for every few pages when she switched plots and broke my focus (as above). sigh

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lydia lived with her family in south Boston, an Irish enclave, in the early twentieth century. The family of four boys and Lydia were close until Lydia got a job across the bridge in a posh store selling gentleman's clothing. There she met Henry, a medical student, who courted her and they eventually married. Henry was from a wealthy family so they moved into an apartment in a better neighborhood.
Henry was rejected as a volunteer when the US entered WWI and then he contracted influenza and died. Lydia had given up her job when she married so she moved back in with her family, a heartbroken widow. A second tragedy happened when her beloved brother , Micheal, signed up to go to war but died from the flu before his ship sailed.
Lydia became a nurse's assistant in a research project on Gallops Island trying to isolate the way influenza spread. I found this part of the book the most interesting, given the current covid-19 epidemic. Research methods were quite crude and ultimately unsuccessful. The research subjects were military convicts who missed out on the fighting for some reason but volunteered for this project as an alternative to languishing in prison.
There were parts of the book that didn't work for me. The frequent interjections from the dead were irritating but the letters and extraneous bits at the end of each chapter I started skipping over since they didn't really add anything substantial to the actual storyline. The development of QD Soda was another story that didn't touch me at all.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a little torn about my rating. I think it should’ve been more of a 3 1/2 star. The main story was very engaging, especially in 2020, because it took place during the Spanish flu epidemic. It was interesting to compare how things are managed. However, there were several levels of narration going on here. Beside them I main story, there are thoughts from random people who may or may not have been in the story, who apparently are now in the afterlife. Then there were actual newspaper articles from the time, which were OK. Then there were random dialogue between people that kept you guessing as to who the conversation was between. Then there was a letters about “wickets remedy“ which could have been from the 1920s or the 1990s. It may books where chapters are narrated by different characters seem very straightforward. I don’t really think some of this enhanced the story at all. It just made it very confusing. What is failed to do was tell you anything about what happened to the main character after this short period of time. It is implied that she married someone she met during this time, but it would have been interesting just to know at least in a sentence or two what they need of their life together.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this during the current pandemic was interesting. There certainly were parallels between what we're experiencing now and what happened during the 1918 flu. As this was written in the early 2000's, those parallels felt like warnings, and that was my favorite part of the book.

I read somewhere that the author was able to make significant edits after the first edition was printed onto paperback. I read a first edition hard back copy, so that is what I'm reviewing. The characters were so intensely dull, I don't even remember a physical description being given of any of them. The author apparently despises dialog because there is hardly any. The writing in the margins from the dead Royal "we" were so confusing and added very little to the story, especially the ones which added the secret sex fantasies? Of nearly anonymous dead folks? And also revealed the main character's racism once lol. Wickett himself dies immediately, taking with him the titular "remedy," and therefore making every single subsequent detail of the soda absolutely exhausting.

I do appreciate the author taking on such an interesting and nearly forgotten time in history, and she is not a bad writer, just not a great story teller.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at 1918 New York through the eyes of Lydia Kilkenny, a young Irish girl, who has just completed 8th grade and found a job in a nice department store. Lydia's school friends found jobs in sewing factories but she rode the streetcar uptown to Washington Street and found a job in the stockroom at Gilchrist's Department Store. Lydia "learned the difference between a heavy tub silk and a crepe de chine shirt and the relative merits of a Norfolk versus a sacque suit. She learned that the best suit jackets were nipped in at the waist and slope-shouldered. When a counter girl was fired for tardiness, Lydia was ready. She claimed the sales floor for herself." Lydia's career ended after her romantic courtship with a gentleman she met on her job. WWI and Spanish flu epidemic impacted the lives of Lydia and her family, changing their familiar world forever.

[Kay C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book for the most part. I particularly loved the character of Lydia and all the descriptions of how she worked in a department store, but eventually got into nursing at an island where there were tests being given to prisoners in order to develop a vaccine for the 1918 pandemic. It was quite relevant for today's Covid 19 pandemic . I didn't enjoy the pull quotes throughout as they didn't always relate to the location of the story. Having read the Kindle version, the quotes appear in the middle of the text instead of in the margins as they do in a printed book. I also didn't care for the letters who were written, apparently by the sodaman (a local soft drink maker). I felt those were irrelevant to the story. The ending was also a bit of a letdown in that it merely limped out and left me yearning for an actual conclusion.