Fever 1793 discussion

Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793 is a historical fiction novel that details the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia through the perspective of a young girl as her life and expectations crumble in the face of an epidemic that takes the lives of her loved ones. In terms of setting and tone, this book carries a lot of similarities to post-apocalyptic fiction but significantly differs in that while it covers a climatic event in the city of Philadelphia's history, Philadelphia obviously survived the outbreak. So in short, the story told within is a purely apocalyptic one, with the post- portion of it concerning the rebuilding of the city and of its characters lives prior to the outbreak. This is interesting in that where post-apocalyptic fiction often focuses on the reversion of humanity to a primitive and warlike state, Fever 1793 shows how society can heal even in the face of such a disaster. Of course, the historical record of this is pretty conclusive since its an historical fiction. Still, for works of pure fiction, it would be interesting to always have a book like this next to Stephen King's The Stand and other similar works if only for the comparison.

In any case, the story simply just WORKS, as Matilda, or "Mattie" as she's quickly called, is put through the ringer as the outbreak slowly builds in the background of her mostly common life as her family coffee house and its daily tribulations before it arrives and wipes everything away, starting with her friend. With Mattie being a 14 year old teenager, there's also the expected potential love interest, which thankfully fades away in time as the outbreak begins to kill hundreds of people. What follows is tense, as first Mattie goes on a journey where she experiences trials before she comes back to a home that's irrevocably changed and as a result must pass deal with more challenges before at the end of the novel she reunites with her mother and begins to take on the responsibility of running the coffee house herself. With the novel starting with Mattie worrying about childish social positioning and high-class etiquette before she begins to lose her family and eventually take on the responsibility their deaths have left in a sort of vacuum-like state, the main arc of her story is pretty much her advancing from childhood and through her teenager years before she settles into adulthood. Definitely a good book by any other means, but the fact that it has that arc in particular makes it an especially worthwhile book to younger readers.

Even if this book doesn't fulfill the ever popular fantasy or sci-fi requirements for younger readers to have an easy interest in it, the use of a typical lead from the Young Adult sub-genre is an effective way to get the story to at least relate to younger readers before the outbreak begins and either introduce them to the historical-fiction genre or keep their interest going.