Due Preparations for the Plague [Library Binding]

Janette Turner Hospital (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2004

A powerful literary thriller from the acclaimed author of OYSTER. Lowell feels contagious with doom. A divorced father with young children, he dreads the anniversary of a hijacked Paris-New York flight on which his mother was killed when he was sixteen years old. Samantha, a survivor of the disaster is plaguing Lowell with phone calls. She says she has information from declassified documents and is obsessed with learning the whole truth about Air France 64. 'What can be worse than not knowing?' she asks. But Lowell only wants to forget. When his father dies suddenly and mysteriously on the anniversary of the hijack, leaving Lowell the key to a locker in an airport terminal, a terrible story unfurls before him. Together, he and Samantha find the truth bearing down on them with the force of an aeroplane exploding. Janette Turner Hospital's electrifying new novel probes with astonishing acuity the murky worlds of espionage and intelligence gathering, the experience of terror and the meaning of survival.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hospital (Oyster) is a writer of many gifts; her dark imagination, astute insights into societal interactions and the supple beauty of her prose, provide an irresistible combination. This latest novel is an enthralling tale about the intertwined fates of the survivors and the relatives of those who perished on Flight 64, hijacked by terrorists in 1987. The dysfunctional life of Lowell Hawthorne, a divorced father of two children, is rooted in his mother's death on that flight when he was a teenager ("every year, as September approaches, he believes he has put it all behind him, he believes he has laid the ghosts, he believes he will feel nothing but a dull, almost pleasurable sort of pain, like a toothache. And then: shazam, he is a wreck again"). Hawthorne is also tormented by the fact that his estranged father, an intelligence agent, may have had some knowledge of the hijacking before it happened. When Hawthorne's father dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances and Hawthorne starts getting phone calls from Samantha, one of the 40 children who survived the fatal flight (they were released before the plane was blown up), Hawthorne is finally forced to confront his demons. Together, Hawthorne and Samantha go on a dangerous quest to discover the truth behind the disaster and to understand why there was an apparent government coverup in its aftermath. In intense, lyrical prose, Hospital introduces seemingly disparate characters and places and connects them through an elaborate and poignantly tragic plot, only disrupted by the distracting inclusion of overelaborate descriptions of terrorist tactics. In this age of global terrorism, Hospital's sophisticated psychological thriller offers a thought-provoking glimpse of the sociopolitical intricacies of the individuals and organizations that track terrorism, as well as of the enduring personal struggles of those left behind after an attack
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Hospital's last novel, the hypnotic Oyster (1998), used the idea of millennium fever to explore the lure of cults. Drawing again on what we fear most in the world around us, she turns this time to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Lowell is a single father whose mother died when terrorists hijacked an Air France plane she was on in 1987. That event continues to haunt him and the other children of the victims, one of whom, Samantha, is convinced that the whole story of the hijacking has never been told and wants Lowell's help in unearthing it. When Lowell's father, a CIA agent, dies suspiciously and leaves his son incriminating evidence about the U.S.' role in Air France 64, Lowell reluctantly joins forces with Sam. Although it sounds like a high-concept thriller, Hospital's novel is nothing like that. Jumping between multiple characters' points of view, she focuses not only on the horror of the actual events but also on the even more terrible horror of how such events force us to face the world. Much of this novel is excruciatingly painful--especially the videotaped transcripts of the hijack victims' deaths from chemical weapons--but the pain is never gratuitous or sensationalistic. Hospital asks us to confront a world where government "intelligence" has become the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, but she shows us that destruction in the most intimate of terms. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: San Val (July 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417698608
• ISBN-13: 978-1417698608
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Innocence betrayed in the pursuit of truth, July 17, 2003

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Due Preparations for the Plague: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was unprepared for the impact of this riveting novel, defined by psychological tensions and a complicated plot, which presents a deceptively simple story. A number of young children are released from a hijacked Air France flight, although their parents meet a horrible death at the hands of terrorists, the children's lives forever tainted by what they have witnessed. But there is a subplot that implicates the government, notably the CIA, in the manipulation of information that led to the deaths of those on the flight. Over the years, the surviving children keep in close contact, desperately seeking emotional connections. They create a web site, where they request any information regarding the Air France hijacking incident.

Of the surviving children, Samantha is the most driven, unable to cease her relentless quest for answers. None of the children have attained normalcy, the devastation of early trauma marking each facet of their lives. Samantha has been phoning Lowell continuously, in search of yet another detail, as he lost his mother in the tragedy, but was not on the plane. Lowell, an ineffectual husband and father, tormented by nightmares, is the son of a suspected CIA operative in charge of Operation Black Death, code-named Salamander. Lowell is unaware of his father's part in the government cover-up, having spent years believing himself a disappointment to an emotionally distant father. But when Lowell receives a package from his father, recently killed in a car accident, the contents change his perspective and raise serious questions of personal responsibility.

When Lowell finally contacts Samantha, he is in a panic, afraid he is pursued because of the material now in his possession. Unsure whether they are paranoid about the surveillance, Samantha and Lowell secretly meet to review Lowell's contraband, faced with a difficult decision, balancing the explosive information and their desire for survival. There are a number of inexplicable coincidences, people who have known each other in distant places and circumstances brought together on the fateful flight. Both Sam and Lowell discover that some of their relatives are associated with the puzzle, although only tangentially.

Due Preparations for the Plague is a bold examination of an incident of terrorism and the subsequent obfuscation of facts by the CIA. The unacknowledged, clandestine operations of a government engaged in a different kind of war, deliberately invisible, albeit just as deadly, exists after all, unremarked by most. When evil is perpetrated in pursuit of power, there are those who seek to contain that evil, to balance the potential for destruction. But history is rife with examples of failure. In consorting with the worst of mankind, contamination by association is inevitable, small surrenders that deplete good intentions, until there is only the lesser evil and a decision to sustain collateral damage is made by the few for the many.

Yet there is redemption for Sam and Lowell, the intensley personal perspective of those that perished, as, unified, they oppose their tormentor with inordinate bravery. The author graphically illustrates the nature of the human spirit, transcending circumstances, transforming victims from pawns to examples of life at its most magnificent. In the most extreme circumstances, the human spirit demands an intimate communion with others, its pure flame annihilating differences. In a message of love and forgiveness, the dead send hope to future generations, survivors of indignity and shame that lift their faces, uncowed, to the light. "To state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise". (Albert Camus, THE PLAGUE). Luan Gaines/2003.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "This is the Black Death, avenging many centuries of wrong.", July 13, 2003

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Due Preparations for the Plague: A Novel (Hardcover)

With these words the random killing begins in the hijacking of an Air France flight to New York in September, 1987, a five-day ordeal which results in hostage taking, the release of poison gas, and, ultimately, explosions and death for more than 400 people. This fictional but very realistic depiction of the hijacking and the questions it raises about responsibility combine with Turner Hospital's atmospheric and richly detailed imagery to produce a novel that is powerful in its impact and almost surreal in its intensity.

In a style somewhat reminiscent of John LeCarre, Turner Hospital tells sinister, overlapping stories about the victims on the flight, the children who were released by the hijackers and survived to adulthood, and the family members who were left behind to mourn and search for answers. The narrative shifts back and forth through different speakers and points of view, from 1987 to the present and back, building a multi-layered and suspenseful story that is haunting in its emotional effect.

Though the plot is exciting, the focus here is as much on the characters' psychology as on dramatic action. The now-adult children of the hijacking victims tell their stories in the present as they recall events from the past and the questions which torment them still, while the actual participants in the 1987 hijacking tell their stories up to the moment of their deaths. As the survivors investigate the hijacking, they learn that it is not only possible but likely that members of US security agencies helped engineer and implement the catastrophe which claimed their parents. They believe a man called Sirocco commanded the hijacking, but they are also seeking Salamander, his American "controller."

Turner Hospital's eye for detail is unerring, and she uses metaphors with skillful effect to reveal a character's state of mind or create atmosphere. One child/survivor when dreaming, experiences "a terrible intrusive slash of sound, white at the center with red capillaries rivering out." Another character "moves in a weather of anxiety." The author broadens her historical perspective by showing that this kind of violence also existed in Sodom, Gomorrah, and more recently, Nagasaki From literature she cites Boccaccio, Defoe, Camus, and others, pointing out that these writers were condemned "to tell the stories of those who haunted them as an act of propitiation." Smoothly integrated and thought-provoking, these references add to the novel's impact and widen its scope. Though the author relies somewhat heavily on coincidence to resolve the story and create an ending that echoes with "happily ever after," the novel is thoughtful, vividly written, and hypnotic in its spell. 4.5 stars. Mary Whipple

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Notwithstanding, it's a five star read, January 10, 2005

By 

Gregory Bascom (San Jose Costa Rica) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Due Preparations for the Plague: A Novel (Hardcover)

This review is for the W. W. Norton & Company hardcover first edition published in July 2003, 401 pages. This edition does not have a reader's guide. DUE PREPARATIONS FOR THE PLAGUE is Janette Turner Hospital's tenth novel. She also has published five collections of stories.

This is a literary spy thriller about the hijacking of Air France flight 64 bound for New York from Paris in September 1987. The narrative present, however, begins in September 2000 and focuses on two persons whose parent or parents died during the tragedy. The story has suspense, intrigue, CIA agents, spies, code names, Arab terrorists, and technological revelation consistent with the thriller genre. But unlike most thriller novels, it does not have a larger than life superhero/heroine, it does not require leaps of faith, and the plot does not terminate in the ridiculous or sublime. This well written novel is both character and plot driven.

For the first time in about fifty reviews that I've submitted, I just read the other customer reviews before finishing mine. Interesting. It appears that those who have tired of the thriller genre, which is gravitating towards formulaic ridiculousness before blissful ending, rate this puppy four or five stars, whereas fans of the genre, nauseated by literary aspects, upchuck two or three. And there is one reader who finds the melding of genre and literary a blasphemous sacrilege, as ignominious as interracial marriage.

I've two observations for the undecided.

Many with an MFA in writing soak their stories in sensory detail, use pages to describe their settings with perfumed words, interrupt dialogue with a symphony of gestures. Janette Turner Hospital is not one of those. Her writing snaps, crackles and pops; it is explicit and purposeful. She tells a story.

On the other hand, Ms. Hospital loaded this one with classical references. The quotations preceding sections are not a bother; read them or skip them. It's the stuff within the story, the analogies and metaphors drawn from the multitude of literature that I've not read that embarrassed me. So I looked them up. Daedalus and Icarus, Scipio and Polybius are from Greek mythology, as is Odysseus and the sorceress Circe. "Bloweth where it listeth" is from the bible (Jon iii 8). Yorick's skull is from Hamlet. Iseult, who fell in love with Tristan, is medieval legend, but Baal Shem Tov, the legendary rabbi, lived from 1698 to 1760. Oh, the Lorenz discovery refers to Edward Lorenz's Chaos Theory about the weather. The four horsemen of death ride in from Apocalypse. Shiva is an Indian god. Kalidasa wrote Cloud Messenger, an Indian love poem. Decameron is the first work of Tuscan literature, which Boccaccio wrote during the plague about the plague.

Notwithstanding, it's a five star read.