The Plague and I

by Betty MacDonald Narrated by Heather Henderson

Overview

Thanks to vaccines, tuberculosis is rare in North America today and, thanks to antibiotics, relatively treatable. This wasn't the case in 1938, when Betty MacDonald was diagnosed.
“Perhaps the funniest book I've ever read. But then each time I read The Egg And I, I think the same thing. Both make me snort out loud. I laugh until I weep...” Mrs. Meers, Goodreads, 2008 (print edition).
It was more common and often deadly. The only hope for a cure was treatment in a sanitorium, which was costly. For those who couldn't afford it, there were public facilities with long wait lists. It was into one of these, Firland Sanitorium (The Pines in The Plague and I), that Betty MacDonald was lucky enough to go in 1938. With the same abundant wry humor and keen observation of people that made her first book, The Egg and I, so immensly popular, MacDonald describes life at The Pines. Her account of her year there is a rare look at a kind of medicine no longer practiced by a rare writer: one of the premiere memoirists of her era, ... one of the first Seattleites to achieve world-wide recognition, and ... a gifted writer who was able to translate her difficult - even grim - life experiences into books whose biting humor and vivid storytelling strikes readers ... both hilarious and reassuring. (Paula Becker, hisotryling.org)

Editorial Reviews

Open Letters Monthly - Steve Donoghue

"Improbably funny. . . equally remarkable."

Emerald City Book Review - Lory Widmer Hess

"Can you imagine writing a whole book about being forbidden to do anything other than lie in bed? But Betty does, and she somehow makes it a riveting chronicle."

Guardian - Lissa Evans

"MacDonald writes about her seclusion in a way that is painfully, barkingly funny. . . . Her style is completely her own, the sprawling sentences packed with anecdote, incident, bang-on simile and throwaway wit—it’s like overhearing a conversation between someone who keeps forgetting to breathe and another who keeps asking ‘and what happened next?"

Jules Morgan

"An appetizing, well-seasoned feast. MacDonald’s sharp, witty observations as she spends almost a year in The Pines Clinic, outside of Seattle, are perfectly pitched to satisfy readers of memoirs and historical and journalistic fiction, with a huge dollop of idiosyncratic humour. It more than satisfies, in fact, because MacDonald is an impressive and engaging storyteller."

From the Publisher

An appetizing, well-seasoned feast. MacDonald's sharp, witty observations as she spends almost a year in The Pines Clinic, outside of Seattle, are perfectly pitched to satisfy readers of memoirs and historical and journalistic fiction, with a huge dollop of idiosyncratic humour. It more than satisfies, in fact, because MacDonald is an impressive and engaging storyteller.

--Jules Morgan "The Lancet"

Can you imagine writing a whole book about being forbidden to do anything other than lie in bed? But Betty does, and she somehow makes it a riveting chronicle.

--Lory Widmer Hess "Emerald City Book Review"

Improbably funny. . . equally remarkable.

--Steve Donoghue "Open Letters Monthly"

MacDonald writes about her seclusion in a way that is painfully, barkingly funny. . . . Her style is completely her own, the sprawling sentences packed with anecdote, incident, bang-on simile and throwaway wit--it's like overhearing a conversation between someone who keeps forgetting to breathe and another who keeps asking 'and what happened next?

--Lissa Evans "Guardian"

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172199851
Publisher:	Post Hypnotic Press
Publication date:	01/01/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos