A Death-Struck Year

Reviewed by: Nina Sachs - MLIS, Portland, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 3, 2014

Review

Lucier's timely novel set during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic introduces us to Cleo Berry, a seventeen-year-old orphan who leaves the safety of her boarding school to volunteer in the Red Cross when the flu extends its claws to the West Coast. Unsparing in her depiction of the flu's predations and the fear of contagion that spreads even more rapidly, Lucier gives us a young woman whose courage is fully equal to anything that has emerged in any of the recent dystopias, and reminds us that historical events can grip us every bit as much as the imagined future. Cream

Overall Book Score: excellent