Year Of Wonders

Year Of Wonders Geraldine Brooks

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Kelly's book group chose this for the October book. I am magnetically attracted to any novel subtitled "A Novel of the Plague", and also Kelly seemed to like it.

The book is based on the history of the (real) English mountain village of Eyam, which in 1665 and 1666 was struck with the Plague. Led by their pastor, William Mompesson, the villagers agreed to quarantine themselves to stem the spread of "plague seeds".

Brooks' prose is pleasingly spare, with liberal use of period vocabulary, usually to good effect. The story moves briskly, related by the servant of Mompellion (the nom de clef for the historical Mompesson). If the protagonist is anachronistically mobile socially, and oddly open-minded, I was inclined to let it slide because the narrative is engaging and plausible enough.

Plausible enough until the conclusion, that is. The end is startlingly bad, unmixed bodice-ripper stuff mixed with a simply bizarre denoument in Oran, of all places. Brooks has to be tipping her hat to Camus's The Plague with that choice of setting, but it doesn't redeem the novel's unfortunate flameout.