Wickett's Remedy (a novel) by Myla Goldberg

[Guest guest]

A virus long-gone, a legend revived

With the reconstruction of 1918 influenza outbreak, Goldberg offers a

social context to the killer through historical fiction.

BY ALEXANDRA ALTER, Miami Herald

It's a proud moment for any novelist when a character finally springs

to life, gaining three dimensions, sovereign impulses, practically

its own genetic coding. It happened to Myla Goldberg in a rather odd

way this October, when scientists reconstructed the 1918 influenza

virus from the corpse tissue of two World War I soldiers and a frozen

Alaskan woman.

''It was terribly exciting,'' said Goldberg, whose novel Wickett's

Remedy (Doubleday, $24.95) takes place in Boston during the deadly

1918 Spanish flu pandemic. ``They were able to bring this flu virus

back to life.''

By coincidence, Goldberg and a team of scientists worked in parallel

worlds of science and fiction; while scientists rebuilt the virus

itself, Goldberg reconstructed the world the virus inhabited. In her

sickly society -- where characters' most salient traits are their

immune systems -- influenza stands out as the novel's most vibrant

and mysterious character. The virus not only drives the plot,

destroying marriages and families and causing social barriers to

crumble, but seeps into the book's tone, language and its complex

structure.

Goldberg, whose debut novel Bee Season won wide critical acclaim,

pounced on the subject several years ago after reading a New York

Times article that listed the 1918 influenza outbreak among the five

most destructive epidemics in history. Goldberg, who will happily

spend several months learning about ribonucleic acid, couldn't

believe she had never heard of the massive outbreak, which killed an

estimated 50 million people worldwide.

''The more I researched and the more I found out about it, the more I

felt compelled not only to explore that period, but also to explore

the frailty of memory,'' Goldberg says.

Six months of research gave Goldberg a grasp of historical details --

how hospitals overflowed, forcing their staffs to treat patients in

makeshift tents -- and such cultural nuances as the speech idioms of

early 20th century Boston.

The novel centers on the struggle of its plucky young protagonist

Lydia, a department-store counter girl from South Boston whose life

takes a Cinderella upturn when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy

medical student. Before long, however, influenza claims her husband

and her newly acquired social status. Reeling from the loss, Lydia

volunteers as a nurse in a medical study of how influenza is

transmitted -- and watches as doctors infect healthy naval prisoners

with the disease. Goldberg said she learned about an actual

experiment on naval prisoners while doing research at the Library of

Congress. ``It was this throwaway sentence in one of the books I was

reading.''

One of her biggest challenges was whittling down her research, she

says. Another was juggling different narrative styles. Goldberg

weaves real historical documents throughout the novel, a technique

she says she picked up from Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy.

Goldberg said she tackled the period genre to ensure her longevity as

a writer.

``I wanted my next book to be as humanly different as possible than

my first book. I'm in this for the long haul. I want to be writing

books 30 years from now. I feel like I have to push myself in all

different directions.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/books/13058275.htm