I am all for books with funky narrators and interesting narrative styles. Though I’m still unsure about postmodernism, I love novels that push the limits on our expectations for genre. When I picked up “Wickett’s Remedy”, I thought that I was just in for an interesting story on the Spanish influenza. Oh boy, how wrong I was! What I wound up with was a great novel about South Boston during WWI, but written in a style that includes voices from those who had already past. Additionally, the author uses a bit of a scrapbook technique that includes letters, newsletters, and newspaper clippings. All of these forms are beautifully woven into the story in a way that gives it many dimensions and a great story.Lydia is an Irish girl from South Boston who yearns to live and work on Washington Avenue. While all of her neighbors are going about their lives in Southie, Lydia lands a job working at a famous department store on her dream street. It is there that she meets her future husband who is studying to be a doctor. However, he abandons that path when he and Lydia marry and instead decides to produce a remedy tonic. When the Spanish Influenza strikes, Lydia’s (along with the rest of the country’s) life is completely turned upside down. Her story is interspersed with newsletters regarding the world famous QD soda. These stories are masterfully braided together to reveal the full extent of Lydia’s life and losses.To say I couldn’t put this book down is a grave understatement. This novel had come to my attention a couple of times before I finally picked it up. Even once I did, I was a bit startled by the fact that there is the complete text in the center of the page with a couple of lines of subscript in the margins of each page. It took a bit of time to figure out how to handle this but it soon became natural to read the standard text and then glance over at the marginal notes. The notes are written in the first person plural and seem to be from the viewpoint of those who have passed on. Typically, they are used as a way for secondary characters to voice how they viewed a certain situation. This is incredibly interesting because it shows the shortcomings of the overall narrator while calling into question our personal memories and their accuracy. Each chapter is constructed a bit like a scrapbook. The majority of the pages focus on the overall plot with the marginal notes supplementing it. Towards the end of each chapter, the author throws in some news clippings, letters, and various kinds of dialog. It’s a little bit of a game to try to figure out what it all means but as it comes together it’s clear that the whole book is a beautiful tapestry of narrative techniques.As a history buff, I was extremely impressed by the amount of meticulous research the author performed. Most historical fiction focuses on a historical event but than manipulates it to fit the author’s characters and views. This is not true of “Wickett’s Remedy”. The history is not only accurate but vital to the characters and the story. The plot is not merely dropped into a certain time period but instead is about that time and the people in it. This adds a realness to the characters that is often lacking in fiction. Overall, I think that this is a fantastic book both for its story and its technique. I have no qualms recommending it to book groups, friends, family, enemies, and strangers.www.iamliteraryaddicted.blogspot.com
A story woven through with bits of narrative, newspaper articles, letters, and overheard conversation, Wickett's Remedy takes place during the Spanish influenza epidemic in Boston, focusing around a woman named Lydia. Lydia marries young, her husband is a frail man from a wealthy family who doesn't want to be the doctor his parents have sent him off to be, and who develops the idea of "Wickett's Remedy." Henry wanted to be a journalist, and believes in the healing power words can bring. And so, with everty bottle of "medicine," the purchaser receives a letter from Henry. Never a moneymaker, it made Henry happy. That is, until he became quite ill, and died.Lydia returns to her family, to find that her beloved brother has been drafted and is being sent off to war. When HE dies as well, she is sent into a tailspin, needing to find some sort of purpose in life. And she does find it--by volunteering to help give care at an experiment on Gallups Island meant to find the cause of the flu and subsequently, how to put an end to this growing plague.Meanwhile, a young business associate of Henry's takes the drink of Wickett's Remedy and being to market it as a soda with his initials. Quentin Driscoll becomes like the man who founded Coca-Cola, running a vast empire whose influence transcends decades, and whose drink becomes a household favorite. Lydia never receives any credit or monetary compensation. It is not until Mr. Driscoll is aging and fading away in a senior center that we see the toll the remorse from this secret has taken on him.The reason I give this book 4 stars instead of just 3 is for its ingenuity: in the margins of the pages are what appear to be little notes, and which is what they are. But they are notes from those who have died, and who also remember scenes described from Lydia's point of view, but these perceptions do not always match Lydia's. These "Whisperings" give the reader that little nudge of a reminder that we don't know what all lurks in the air around us, and that our memories are faulty at best. Our perceptions of reality or facts are just that - perceptions, for what one person remembers vividly another remembers quite differently. I enjoyed these little notes and felt as if I was being included into a different world, none which any living person is granted true access to.
What do You think about Wickett's Remedy (2006)?
With the re-emergence of the H1N1 or swine flu virus, Wickett's Remedy is a timely read. Two stories, one modern and one historical with the common thread of the elixer called Wickett's Remedy. Its historical setting: Boston and an offshore military prison colony, where prisoners to be exposed to the flu. Get it and live - and they're free. Lydia Wickett's husband dies of the flu just as Wickett's Remedy takes off. Her restlessness leads her to nursing at the military prison. as it's set near the last great (1918) influenza epidemic. The book contains a "love it or hate it" feature where margin notes show the thoughts of dead characters, who comment freely on Lydia's version of the story. I loved the margin notes. They added richness to an otherwise bland story and they were often very funny. Where the main narrative thread ended with many unresolved questions, the margin notes provided more closure. Overall, a disappointing read. The story line had so much potential but just left me flat.
—Diane
This book caught my interest when I found it on a thrift store shelf. It is a multi-layered tale: the main storyline is about Lydia, a young lady living in south Boston in the early 1900's, her marriage, her husband's creation of a remedy for sickness, and then the Spanish Flu epidemic that sweeps through the country. Another layer is the social happenings of the time: advertisements of QD soda, conversations betweeen men and their concerns over the flu (I thought I knew who they were, but the author threw in a twist, which was nice), and letters from a father to a son (which also became more clear at the end). Thirdly, there is running commentary along the sides by those already deceased. I thought of these as "tweets" which sometimes run alongside a story, or a television show. They just added an interesting perspective on how memory changes over time. This book was masterfully crafted. I'd never read anything like it. I have appreciation for how the author brought this story out, and there were some beautiful descriptions that I read over twice. My only complaint is that, for all the time I invested in reading it, I would have liked more of a wrap-up. Sure, there were hints as to how it all ended, so there's no question really. I think emotionally, a reader needs to feel a closure, and instead, I felt like I was just dropped. I enjoyed the book, and I cared about Lydia enough to stick with it. I just don't understand why an author would want to leave a bad taste in the reader's mouth by not honoring them with a real ending.
—Christina
An interesting book to listen to while hearing about the present day swine flu. It's about the Spanish Influenza outbreak and set in Boston. The ignorance of the flu at that time is amazing. The voices on the audiobook were at first confusing. Then, I really enjoyed them and they added to the story. Besides the narrator ( who is the author) there are ethereal voices that are from dead people as individuals and from the dead as a whole, basically editing the memories of the living as the story is being told. These voices are not in a majority of the story, but make it interetsing and remind us that the recollections of humans are dependent on so much more than actual experience. The main character is a young woman who loses a lot of people through the epidemic and "comes of age" as she does so. She is not so likable at the beginning but becomes really sweetas she matures throught the story. She eventually becomes an assistant nurse in a study on flu transmission that is rather disturbing. The ending is odd, and there is a back story of this "remedy" that she and her husband created that turned into a soda pop. Hence, Wickett's Remedy is the title. The main story, though, is about the Spanish flu, the terrible toll it took on the people at the time, and how it shaped this particular woman.
—Lori
