Title: Typhoid Mary
Author: Anthony Bourdain
Year: 2001/2005
Publisher: Bloomsbury
156 pages
Bourdain's breezy essay on Mary Mallon is less factual than speculative, more of a pensée focused on cooks' employment and circumstances than a biography or social history. Some of his assertions are a stretch, and others are factually incorrect. It could have used a good edit for accurate content and consistent style. For maximum effect, read with Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It.
No comments:
Post a Comment