Customer Reviews
Made Me Think I Had Flu - By: J. E. Parry, 04 Jan 2009 
I was very intrigues by the write-up on this book & decided to give it a try as it seemed to be slightly out of my normal reading choice.
I was very impressed by this as it is a first novel but written with style & is very well paced. The story somehow locks youin & you are held by the decisions that are faced by the community.
You are immediately shown the quandry that the settlers facein having quarantined the town as a stranger approaches & is warned to stay away. However he keeps coming & won't take any notice of the warning. We're are then taken into the consequences that this choice takes.
One of the most important questions is how far to you goin protecting your community? Once you have made the ultimate decision & are faced with a similar situation later is it right to make a different decision next time?
You also find that the choices you make can be hindered by the lack of knowledge that you have at the time. You sometimes fit the choices to your own skewed vision of the situation & then have to live with the consequences.
Mullen creates a clostraphobic environmentin the forests & the isolation of this logging community. We are told how this community was formed to escape the exploitation & violence that aboundedin labour relations at the time. They move to the forest to set up a timber mill & town that will be run on more socialistic & inclusive lines.
The problem is that no matter where you go you are never free from the influence, rules & jealousy of others. So the town is not only threatened by the flu epidemic but also the hatred of neighbouring towns & wider threat of war.
This is definitely a book worth your time & patience.
A very good read ... - By: Lawyer Girl, 01 Jan 2009 I can't put my finger on exactly what it was about this book that made me race through it, but it certainly was a very good read.
A isolated mill town finds out that towns all around have been hit by a particularly strong strain of flu that is killing the healthiest people, leaving them choking to death on their own blood. The town, at the time healthy, votes to quarantine itselfin order to stay healthy - but it all starts going wrong...
I have to admit I was a bit suspect about this flu - turning people blue, hitting the healthiest hardest - but a quick google & you find out that it's all true & it struck all over the world. I notice that the historical accuracy of the novel has been questioned - but who cares - this is a novel, not a text book!
I was gripped all the way through, following mill owner's adopted son. He was forced to be a man at just 16 & make some difficult decisions while all around him fell to pieces. His struggle to do the right thing & measure up made him an excellent choice for the central character!
Mullen can be a bit wordy at times, & sometimes you wish he'd get back to the action, spending just a little too long telling the history of the characters. But these aren't major faults. I would certainly recommend this novel to everyone who can accept a few historical inaccuracies & just enjoy a good story.
How did this book win a prize for historical fiction? - By: Mr. D. Mcculloch, 17 Jul 2007 
In "The Last Town on Earth", we find a doctor visiting a poor household using the telephone to call the undertaker -in 1918? Poor folks didn't have phones then,in fact most rich folks didn't either. The same applies to the motor carin which one of the characters loses a foot, well before 1918; the car is supposed to be owned by a foreman, not a rich man either. One female character is a feminist, & is able to get to all sorts of meetingsin the North West United States, at a time when feminists, cars, & decent roads were few.
Book club choice - By: book-worm.biz, 31 Jan 2007 Setin 1918, this book uses the flu epidemic raging across the world killing over 50M people, to look at what would happen if a group of people decided to cut themselves off from the world to try to escape infection.
The people of Commonwealth, a small mill town Washington State, vote to put themselves under quarantinein order to keep out the virus. Guards are posted on lookout duty to ensure that no-one leaves or enters. On day two, the guards are confronted with a moral dilemma. A soldier appears, begging for help. He is hungry, cold & tired. Should they admit him & put their families at risk or should they place their lives above his & let him diein the woods? The choices they make & their impact on the town as panic & conflict take hold is the central theme of the book.
The book will generate lots of discussion at a book club. Discussion will focus on the dilemma as well as the great characters which form the substance of this book. The town doctor is a beautifully drawn character; he is an elderly man who had just a few weeks' trainingin the days when disease was thought to be caused by miasmas & the cure was bleeding or cupping. He tries to keep up with the new science but with few resources & little knowledge he is confronted with the possibility of having to deal with a major outbreak of a killer disease. The other characters are just as intriguing: the boy with the wooden foot, the suffragette, the mill owner, the store keeper - all damaged people who have come to Commonwealth to rebuild lives & suddenly face their biggest challenge.
The first part of the book gives the back story of the characters & there will be too much of this for some; perhaps the author could have got into the meat of story sooner. However, once it gets going the story is compelling & you have to know how it it going to finish.
In our bookclub, praise for the ending was high: well thought out, it is neither neat nor predicable.
The book generated discussion on medical science & why the 1918 flu virus affected young & health adults & had less impact on the very young & elderly, [elderly might well have built up immunity during previous milder epidemics] & just today there is a news story on BBC website [health] about new gene research using tissue recovered from a body buriedin the Alaskan permafrostin 1918. We also talked about what we would choose to doin our village - would we quarantine ourselves, could we, should we do it?
Outstanding! - By: kehs, 06 Jul 2006 
I was lucky enough to be sent a proof copy of this book & I am very happy to be able to recommend it as an outstanding read. It's setin WW1 & is about a small town that puts itself under quarantinein order to keep out a plague virus that is sweeping the world & killing large amounts of people. Guards are posted on lookout duty to ensure that no-one leaves or enters the town - until one day a soldier appears, begging for help. He is hungry, cold & tired. He begs for help - what would you do? We learn about the course of action that the young guard takes, the outcome it has on his family, & the chain of events that causes fear, distrust & ugly rumours to almost destroy the community. This is a true page turner which sweeps the reader along with the mounting panic as fear sets into the town. Gripping stuff...I loved every page.
