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Affection: There is No Cure
Shortlisted for the National Year of Reading 2012 Award
January 1900, and Australia's tropical north just got a little hotter. An outbreak of plague is suspected, and the Queensland Government sends Dr Alfred Jefferis turner - small, refined and immaculately dressed - to assess the situation. turner, armed with a microscope, a butterfly net and his lovelorn yet devout colleague, Dr Linford Row, is met with incredulity, not least by local councillors who insist it's only typhoid. Fifty-two possible plague-carriers - including two prominent MPs - are isolated in a dilapidated quarantine station on Magnetic Island. Meanwhile, in town, the sewers overflow, the streets choke with rubbish; and still no-one wants to listen. When Dr Row delivers a letter from one of the quarantined men to his hauntingly beautiful wife, he ensnares both himself and the eccentric Dr turner in a hotbed of small-town scandal and fear. Written with wit and wonder, Affection uncovers a unique period in Australian history. A novel based on a true story of shonky politics, courageous medicos, and humidity, it's also a mystery of heart and mind.
January 1900, and Australia's tropical north just got a little hotter. An outbreak of plague is suspected, and the Queensland Government sends Dr Alfred Jefferis turner - small, refined and immaculately dressed - to assess the situation. turner, armed with a microscope, a butterfly net and his lovelorn yet devout colleague, Dr Linford Row, is met with incredulity, not least by local councillors who insist it's only typhoid. Fifty-two possible plague-carriers - including two prominent MPs - are isolated in a dilapidated quarantine station on Magnetic Island. Meanwhile, in town, the sewers overflow, the streets choke with rubbish; and still no-one wants to listen. When Dr Row delivers a letter from one of the quarantined men to his hauntingly beautiful wife, he ensnares both himself and the eccentric Dr turner in a hotbed of small-town scandal and fear. Written with wit and wonder, Affection uncovers a unique period in Australian history. A novel based on a true story of shonky politics, courageous medicos, and humidity, it's also a mystery of heart and mind.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
4 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Ian Townsend
11 books7 followersIan Townsend is a journalist and radio documentary maker who worked for many years with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio national network. He has won numerous awards for journalism, including four national Eureka Prizes for science and medical journalism and an Australian Human Rights Award. His first novel, Affection, based on the 1900 outbreak of plague in Townsville, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, the Colin Roderick Award, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the National Year of Reading, and was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC award. His second novel, The Devil’s Eye, based on the 1899 Bathurst Bay cyclone, was long listed for the Miles Franklin Award. His latest book, Line of Fire, is non-fiction, combining family history with military history and geology to tell the story of the civilian and military disaster that befell Rabaul at the start of the Pacific War.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
January 23, 2021
A rather underappreciated novel, first published in 2005, of an outbreak of the bubonic plague that hit Australia just before the turn of the century in 1900. The novel focuses on the far north town of Townsville and fictionalises and fleshes out some real life characters of the time.
Some of the story seemed a little stilted but that may have been my lack of concentration while I was reading some early chapter.
There's some extremely interesting parallels with today and dealing with politicians and competing economic interests with public health. Not to mention the lack of understanding of the townsfolk and how their desperately sick relatives needed to be isolated and many passed away and were buried without any family present. All sounds very familiar in the present covid19 world.
There's even "fake news" raising it's ugly head and making the whole public health situation worse.
The exhaustion of the towns medical personal and their attempts to escape from their own troubles make for some hilarious light relief. There's even a dramatisation of a local siege that verged on turning into a riot.
A number of the places in Townsville can still be visited but sadly like many small graveyards of small towns back in that era the details of those that perished have been lost to history. A fascinating little known background to a town that my youngest son has recently moved to, I'll be sure to visit some of these places when we pop up to the far north over a 2000km away for our first family visit.
One I'd recommend for anyone interested in reading an interesting and very different story of far north Queensland.
Some of the story seemed a little stilted but that may have been my lack of concentration while I was reading some early chapter.
There's some extremely interesting parallels with today and dealing with politicians and competing economic interests with public health. Not to mention the lack of understanding of the townsfolk and how their desperately sick relatives needed to be isolated and many passed away and were buried without any family present. All sounds very familiar in the present covid19 world.
There's even "fake news" raising it's ugly head and making the whole public health situation worse.
The exhaustion of the towns medical personal and their attempts to escape from their own troubles make for some hilarious light relief. There's even a dramatisation of a local siege that verged on turning into a riot.
A number of the places in Townsville can still be visited but sadly like many small graveyards of small towns back in that era the details of those that perished have been lost to history. A fascinating little known background to a town that my youngest son has recently moved to, I'll be sure to visit some of these places when we pop up to the far north over a 2000km away for our first family visit.
One I'd recommend for anyone interested in reading an interesting and very different story of far north Queensland.
October 22, 2016
3 1/2 stars. Loved this being set in North Queensland and knowing the setting, imagining it in 1900. And getting to learn some history of the area that I had never heard of before. The writing is high quality, with subtle sarcasm woven throughout. The author has done a great job of using language appropriate to the period. It made for great discussion at our book club!
February 15, 2011
What a great book. I was fairly new to Townsville when I first read this - it really helped me feel a connection with the history - or at least a small part of the history of this great place.
March 13, 2021
‘Affection: (archaic) the action or process of affecting or being affected.’
For many of us, the bubonic plague was something that happened in the distant past, but it still occurs. It is caused by a bacillus Yersinia pestis, carried by infected fleas or animals such as rodents. These days, because we know how it is transmitted and have access to effective antibiotic treatment, bubonic plague is not as deadly as it once was. But effective management and treatment is essential, and much easier now than it was in 1900.
‘This novel is based on a true story, but it is fiction.’
In January 1900, an outbreak of plague is suspected in Townsville, Queensland. Dr Alfred Jeffris Turner is sent by the Queensland Government in Brisbane to join his colleague Dr Linford Row. Dr Turner, an amateur lepidopterist, arrives armed with a microscope and his butterfly net. Both doctors meet with a hostile reception: local councillors insist that the outbreak is ‘only’ typhoid. Fifty-two possible plague carriers including two MPs aboard the SS Cintra, are isolated on a quarantine station on Magnetic Island. They are not happy. And in Townsville itself, attempts to establish a quarantine station north of Townsville, near Three-Mile Creek, were resisted for a while.
Dr Row lives with his own tragedy: a young daughter who died of a respiratory illness. He throws himself into work to avoid his feelings of sadness and guilt. When he delivers a letter from one of the patients aboard the SS Cintra to the man’s wife, he becomes caught up with more of the people affected by plague.
This novel was published in 2005 but reading it in 2021 it is easy to see some parallels with the current COVID-19 pandemic. Economic interests in Townsville in 1990 had an impact on the speed with which the health crisis was treated. Some of those who lost loved ones to the plague were devastated thar those who died had to be buried in the plague cemetery without family members being able to attend. Fear and rumour spread faster than fact.
Do we ever learn?
I recognise some of the areas of Townsville and Magnetic Island referred to in the novel. I can imagine how challenging it would have been to try to deal with plague cases during the oppressive heat of the tropical summer.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
For many of us, the bubonic plague was something that happened in the distant past, but it still occurs. It is caused by a bacillus Yersinia pestis, carried by infected fleas or animals such as rodents. These days, because we know how it is transmitted and have access to effective antibiotic treatment, bubonic plague is not as deadly as it once was. But effective management and treatment is essential, and much easier now than it was in 1900.
‘This novel is based on a true story, but it is fiction.’
In January 1900, an outbreak of plague is suspected in Townsville, Queensland. Dr Alfred Jeffris Turner is sent by the Queensland Government in Brisbane to join his colleague Dr Linford Row. Dr Turner, an amateur lepidopterist, arrives armed with a microscope and his butterfly net. Both doctors meet with a hostile reception: local councillors insist that the outbreak is ‘only’ typhoid. Fifty-two possible plague carriers including two MPs aboard the SS Cintra, are isolated on a quarantine station on Magnetic Island. They are not happy. And in Townsville itself, attempts to establish a quarantine station north of Townsville, near Three-Mile Creek, were resisted for a while.
Dr Row lives with his own tragedy: a young daughter who died of a respiratory illness. He throws himself into work to avoid his feelings of sadness and guilt. When he delivers a letter from one of the patients aboard the SS Cintra to the man’s wife, he becomes caught up with more of the people affected by plague.
This novel was published in 2005 but reading it in 2021 it is easy to see some parallels with the current COVID-19 pandemic. Economic interests in Townsville in 1990 had an impact on the speed with which the health crisis was treated. Some of those who lost loved ones to the plague were devastated thar those who died had to be buried in the plague cemetery without family members being able to attend. Fear and rumour spread faster than fact.
Do we ever learn?
I recognise some of the areas of Townsville and Magnetic Island referred to in the novel. I can imagine how challenging it would have been to try to deal with plague cases during the oppressive heat of the tropical summer.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
April 10, 2012
This is a wonderful read about the Bubonic Plague outbreak set in Townsville in the late 1890s. I was aware of the Plague outbreak in Sydney in the Rocks area - notorious for its poor hygiene - but not that in other parts of Australia.
The style is easy & enjoyable read and I quickly flew through it. It was one of those lovely "lounging on the couch" reads. The science is well researched and even the entomology is well done (I am a harsh critic on natural history themes).
My only concern is - would a person who hasn't spent time in Townsville find it as enjoyable? I knew all the places intimately from my time as a post-grad student in the early 90s, but was a little unsure how a novice to the area would feel. I know Queensland readers will feel a strong affinity with this story.
The concept of living a Victorian era lifestyle in a humid place like Townsville and the madness it is likely to create was alive and well throughout the book. I definitely want to try other books by this author.
The style is easy & enjoyable read and I quickly flew through it. It was one of those lovely "lounging on the couch" reads. The science is well researched and even the entomology is well done (I am a harsh critic on natural history themes).
My only concern is - would a person who hasn't spent time in Townsville find it as enjoyable? I knew all the places intimately from my time as a post-grad student in the early 90s, but was a little unsure how a novice to the area would feel. I know Queensland readers will feel a strong affinity with this story.
The concept of living a Victorian era lifestyle in a humid place like Townsville and the madness it is likely to create was alive and well throughout the book. I definitely want to try other books by this author.
January 4, 2013
Unlike a lot of historical fiction (Geraldine Brooks' titles come to mind) this book feels authentic. The characters talk, think and act in a way which feels appropriate to the times. Too often other books I've read set in other eras will include some modern way of speaking, thinking or acting which ruins the plot for me. This book seems well researched and is an interesting story about the outbreak of plague at the turn of last century in north Queensland and how public health authorities represented by the main characters in the story dealt with it. I particularly liked the quotes at the start of each chapter taken from historical records of the time. The politics around the actions of the authorities are well described. One of the central incidents where a man refuses to allow his son to be sent to the plague hospital seems particularly true of the emotions of the times, verified by an elderly relative of mine who can remember an incident of the sort when he was a young child in north Queensland in the 1930s.
April 15, 2008
I started to read this thinking it was a fiction based on a reality: the way that steam transport spread plague around the Pacific Rim at the very end of the 19th century and into the 20th century.
It was only when I got to the end that I realised that these were real people, albeit fictionalised. Dawson, the somewhat thuggish politician was in fact the leader of the world's first Labor or Labour government, and was later a Queensland senator and minister for defence in the first federal labor government.
I need to go back and look more at the background, but this is a fine depiction of contending political forces in a time of crisis. I was once close to the centre of a crisis (not a medical one, and only threatening to other people's political ambitions) but I find this to be familiar ground, finely depicted.
Even the science was spot-on, as you would expect when the author's day job is as a science journalist.
It was only when I got to the end that I realised that these were real people, albeit fictionalised. Dawson, the somewhat thuggish politician was in fact the leader of the world's first Labor or Labour government, and was later a Queensland senator and minister for defence in the first federal labor government.
I need to go back and look more at the background, but this is a fine depiction of contending political forces in a time of crisis. I was once close to the centre of a crisis (not a medical one, and only threatening to other people's political ambitions) but I find this to be familiar ground, finely depicted.
Even the science was spot-on, as you would expect when the author's day job is as a science journalist.
November 8, 2016
I was alerted to this book by Book Bliss and thoroughly enjoyed it. While I was vaguely aware that the plague had come to Queensland I was unaware of the details or the impact. With family history interests in Townsville where much of the book's story takes place, I found the descriptions quite fascinating and has given me food for thought re more research opportunities. Magnetic Island also features and is somewhere I holidayed regularly as a child.
Reading the "what happened to them" epilogue, I suspect that there is another research link with the Rev Kerr...another follow up.
There are many fresh descriptions in the book and some passages made me smile or laugh out loud they were so perfect.
If you're interested in the history of Far North Queensland or public health and how it was managed, this is an enjoyable book.
Reading the "what happened to them" epilogue, I suspect that there is another research link with the Rev Kerr...another follow up.
There are many fresh descriptions in the book and some passages made me smile or laugh out loud they were so perfect.
If you're interested in the history of Far North Queensland or public health and how it was managed, this is an enjoyable book.
April 4, 2020
I have had this book sitting on my bookshelf for some years and have only just got around to reading it. I wish I had read it a lot earlier.
Based on historical fact, affection is the story of the plague outbreak in Townsville in 1900 and the setting up of a plague hospital at Pallaranda. The characters were the main people involved in the outbreak and the story has been teased out from reports, letters and sermons. Having lived in Townsville for four years, it was interesting to compare the filth and squalor of the town at the turn of the century with the way it was 100 years later, but, even without this knowledge, I would still have enjoyed the book.
Based on historical fact, affection is the story of the plague outbreak in Townsville in 1900 and the setting up of a plague hospital at Pallaranda. The characters were the main people involved in the outbreak and the story has been teased out from reports, letters and sermons. Having lived in Townsville for four years, it was interesting to compare the filth and squalor of the town at the turn of the century with the way it was 100 years later, but, even without this knowledge, I would still have enjoyed the book.
July 21, 2018
Fascinating peep into the early colonial era in Townsville in nothern Queensland, Australia - amped up by the arrival of the bubonic plague in 1900.
This is a historical novel - these events really happened and these people really existed - and Townsend brings them to life in a sensitive and dramatic way.
He shows how relationships and politics govern what is possible even when there is a clear and obvious public interest in a particular course of action, in this case to protect all the people from the horrors of the bubonic plague.
It was fascinating for me to read the book while in Australia and having been to modern-day Townsville.
This is a historical novel - these events really happened and these people really existed - and Townsend brings them to life in a sensitive and dramatic way.
He shows how relationships and politics govern what is possible even when there is a clear and obvious public interest in a particular course of action, in this case to protect all the people from the horrors of the bubonic plague.
It was fascinating for me to read the book while in Australia and having been to modern-day Townsville.
October 4, 2014
This was one of those novels I went into blind...no idea what it was about, never read the author before. I was impressed not only with the depth and emotional tug of the story (doctors dealing with bubonic plague in 1900 Australia) but how good people fought the very men who were intent on keeping them and their families healthy and alive. That this was more or less a true story, fictionalized a bit, gave it even added weight, as did the undeniable parallels with the Ebola virus in today's headlines. It made me want to read more of Townsend's work.
January 5, 2023
Based on the true story of a plague outbreak in Townsville in 1900. Very interesting and would make a great miniseries.
January 12, 2014
Once the pace picked up it was smoother reading.
February 12, 2018
I thought “Affection” was an amazing story, and I never knew there had been cases of the Plague, in early Brisbane’s history.
Very well written and worth reading.
Very well written and worth reading.
March 23, 2018
Interesting historical novel
I liked the tension that dealing with the plague produced in Townsville, and the fact it was based on true events.
I liked the tension that dealing with the plague produced in Townsville, and the fact it was based on true events.
March 6, 2019
An interesting read.I felt it got bogged in detail in some areas,otherwise I enjoyed reading about Townsville.
April 13, 2011
I could not put this book down! It is a blend of fact and fiction, set in Australia during the 1901 when Townsville was struck by Plague. It is a fascinating read. I found myself searching for more information on the main characters ... Will recommend this to those who like fiction woven around history.
February 21, 2013
Historical fiction the way I like it: the rosy film of nostalgia has been removed, and we see the dirt and the clutter and the muck. I thought at times Dr Row's characterisation was a sometimes unconvincing. The author seems to break in with little droll moments, which are jarring from a man who is supposed to be disconnected with grief.
August 1, 2013
3.5 stars Dr.Row, a public health physician in Northern Australia in 1900,is deeply in mourning for his young daughter when the plague comes to Townsville. I found this to be an engagingly readable exploration of how a community's ability to respond to crisis is impacted by individual filters such as grief, ambition, expense, fear and faith.
September 19, 2013
Interesting fictionalised account of the plague outbreak in Townsville, Queensland in 1900. While it took me a little while to get into the story, by about half-way through I was hooked! Would recommend for lovers of fictionalised history, and especially Australian history.
December 28, 2013
this was an interesting story but I wonder if it would have been less interesting if I wasn't a Townsville resident. Some threads seemed to be left unresolved but as the characters are real people that is to be expected
January 4, 2014
I probably would not have picked up this book to read if it weren't set in my home town. Interesting, but I also felt it had a dream like quality and I felt a bit detached rather than involved in the story. Loved the imagery, dark humour and characterisation of every player, from major to minor.
August 4, 2017
It's a story about plague in northern Queensland, Australia, in 1900. Despite its topic, I find it such a sweet read and a page-turner. Loved reading about vulnerability and affection, as it's rightly titled.
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November 7, 2010Read this for book club and didn't get to finish it, but really enjoyed the half that I read.
April 11, 2014
This grew on me more and more as I read it. It's style is quiet and understated, but the characters are deftly sketched and linger in the memory.
December 22, 2013
Great historical fiction. Found it hard to put the book down.
July 16, 2014
Great book, particularly if you know Townsville.
October 26, 2015
Very good book - quirky characters and a healthy dose of dry humour
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March 21, 2016Interesting story based on a true event; the plague in Australia in 1900 and the doctors trying to stop the spread while fighting with politicians and citizens in denial.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews