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Revision as of 12:26, 23 August 2020
, 12:26, 23 August 2020no edit summary
The town is now more worried about keeping its population away from the pandemic that is the 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak, which will eventually kill more people than World War One, and scupper many people's plans at rebuilding after the war.
As a result, Commonwealth has barricaded the sole track to its borders, and is now keeping armed guard - guards such as sixteen -year -old Philip, and Graham, who will be instrumental in this book's plot.
The milieu of the story is one of fragility everywhere one looks. The people are fragile - this is still frontier territory, with the dangerous element of pioneering communities in backwoods anywhere. The community, as noted, is fragile - people conscripted, if of the right age and not better used elsewhere. Bodies are fragile - Philip has lost a foot, and Graham is minus a pinkie because of an industrial accident. Political consensus is fragile - other mill owners suffering strikes and socialist stirrings with bullets and reduced wages and conditions.
So, in this milieu comes the plot - one of visitors. The first seems fine - he drives to the barricade, trying to sell Liberty Bonds, and drives away again. The second is more serious, and what happens to him turns Graham completely, into a manic protector of his town, permanently on guard. When it comes to the third visitor who arrives with Philip alone on duty, well, things get more serious still - and as for non-human arrivals, well it just doesn't bear thinking about.
Luckily, Thomas Mullen has thought about it a lot, and has provided us with an excellent plot for this first novel. It raises moral questions about the pair of guards, and for Philip's foster father, who founded Commonwealth around the mill. It's one of those plots where the less said about it by me is the better, however much might be guessable from any summary. It successfully turns some of this novel into a literary thriller.
The characters are very well written as well, although the gossipy females surrounding Philips's young love are a bit soapy. All the main characters have perfectly fine story arcs, and smaller characters that might even arrive in the last twenty pages are just as well defined.
''The Last Town on Earth'' really absorbed me into its world, and I can't think of another historical fiction like it for planting the reader so well into a small rural environment and yet engaging its characters and reader so well with the global picture. I certainly recommend it, and thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag. All in all, it's an intelligent and enjoyable way to pass a few hours. You could say they flu by.
We also have a review of [[Darktown by Thomas Mullen]]. If you think you'd enjoy this book then you, might also enjoy [[The Pesthouse]] by Jim Crace.
{{toptentext|list=Top Ten Historical Fiction Books}}
