Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical

I’ve always liked Anthony Bourdain. He was gritty. He was real. And he did an excellent job writing “Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical.”Bourdain excoriated Soper—which he rightly did—for hounding Mary. He also revealed the racism inherent in Soper’s conclusions about Mary. Soper’s conclusions were similar to many others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which were based on poverty vs affluence, females vs males, uneducated vs educated, and native-born citizens vs foreigners. Bourdain analyzed what happened using his wit and matter-of-factness. For example, regarding Soper, he stated that,“…One imagines the sanitary engineer turned private dick [i.e., Soper], lurking under the Third Avenue el, spying on Mary from the shadows as she entered the rooming house…” (pg. 36).At the same time, Bourdain was completely honest about Mallon’s refusal to acknowledge what she did. The author did a fantastic job of looking at all of the various individuals within the Mary Mallon saga.

I had been curious about Typhoid Mary for years. This book was an excellent introduction to her life and times.I don’t know why, but I had, for as long as I had been thinking about it, sort of had a half-impression that Mary had been a seamstress and had lived somewhere in the Midwest. Turns out all of that was wrong. Actually, it turns out she was a cook, and spent her working years in and around New York City. This explains a lot.Anthony Bourdain, himself a chef, focuses on Mary’s life as a cook, and her arrival in America as a refugee from the famine in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century. There are actually few facts known about this woman before she was arrested as a typhoid carrier, and even fewer in her own words. Much of what is thought to be known about her was not necessarily completely reliable accounts by the man who tracked her down and had her arrested. Possibly her later life would have gone a little better if this man had been able to be more diplomatic in his first encounter with her so that she could have stayed to listen to whatever sense he had to say. Instead, she escaped out a window, climbed a fence, and hid in a neighboring outhouse for several hours before the police found her and took her away.He does cover her long confinement at a hospital on a place called North Brother Island – a place where the City of New York built a hospital to keep many of the most contagious people of the time (tuberculosis patients, etc.) away from the rest of the city. Before this, I had only heard brief references to this part of her life, so that was good to know.

A straightforward partial biography of Mary Mallon, the infamous "Typhoid Mary." After reading this, you almost feel sorry for her. Mary was treated very badly by the New York Health Department, as if she were the only disease carrier who existed at the time. Others carried Typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis, but they weren't treated like Mary. Unfortunately, she carried the bacteria that caused a deadly disease and was made an example of, "in the interest of public health." A good read.

Bourdain is a master storyteller and if you found this book rifling through Amazon, that's likely why you're here.You will not be disappointed.Bourdain manages to take a look at Mary as a woman who lost everything through both chance and her own making. The book provides a wealth of context that doesn't allow Mary to be a blameless victim or a heartless monster. She's simply a person, who thanks to a disease she couldn't treat, lost her trade. Her life. Her ability to function in the world.Did she have typhoid? Yes. She caused deaths. Intentionally, or knowingly, or not makes little difference.Could she simply have washed her hands better and avoided detection? Also yes. But she was also a product of her time. Others did the same- or worse.Mary Mallon was a walking disease vector. She was also a woman that moved to America to escape poverty and managed to make her way, only to have it snatched away from her.The book does not excuse the harm she caused, nor the harm inflicted upon her by her captors. Necessary as her captivity may have been, she was treated horribly many times along the way.If any of us were told that we were not allowed to do the one thing we could to improve our lives, wouldn't we be angry? Would we try to run?Add to that the fact many people see their job as a part of their identity. What are you, when part of your sense of self is shorn away while you are still physically able to embody the identity you built?Mulling all that, I am left with an amount of sympathy for Mary I did not expect.Some of my buy in is admittedly based on my love of Bourdain's work. I have admired the man for many years. Much of this book is hypothesis, conjecture, and reconstruction.Even knowing all that, I cannot shake the feeling that as much of a public threat Mary was, she deserved the little kindness given to her and then some.Such is the power of storytelling.Read it. This slapshod summary does not give this visceral book justice.

Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary, is one of those people that you hear about briefly when you take a good safety course. Very little is said beside "She carried a disease and gave it to many people. ". This book is written almost as a tribute from one cook to another, but fully outlines the professional, as well as aspects of a well hidden personal, existence. Beyond her relationship with a communicable disease, little is known of her, and this book sheds some light on her as a person.