In 1906, at a prosperous Long Island summer home, a family falls ill and typhoid is diagnosed. When Dr George Soper is called in to find the source of the contagion, he notices that the household cook has gone missing. She is Mary Mallon, the woman who would become known as Typhoid Mary. Soper, sanitary engineer turned sleuth, sees Mary as his Moriarty. He finds there has been an outbreak of typhoid fever in every household she has worked in over the past decade. Mary is a 'carrier', a seemingly healthy individual who passes on her dangerous germs, sometimes with fatal consequences. Now Soper must hunt the cook down before she can infect more unsuspecting victims. A poor Irish immigrant, Mary refuses to believe that she can harbour typhoid in her strong and healthy body, and she doesn't intend to go quietly. In this fascinating true story Bourdain, in an homage from one cook to another, follows Mary through the kitchens of New York, putting a human face to a desperate and unintentional murderer, and examines a time, and a life, with his inimitable style.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
'What Jean Genet was to the prison, what Tom Waits is to the lowlife bar, Bourdain is to the restaurant kitchen: a charmingly roguish guide to a tough, grimy underworld with its own particular rules and rituals ... a tale of hot pursuit, with the rude gusto and barbed wit that made Kitchen Confidential such a full-bodied pleasure' New York Times Book Review 'Raw, readable prose' Entertainment Weekly 'Bourdain's prose is utterly riveting' New York Magazine 'A juicy drama ... Bourdain creates a varied historical portrait of Mallon's time' Seattle Times
About the Author
Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City. He is also the author of the novels The Bobby Gold Stories, Gone Bamboo and Bone in the Throat, plus the bestselling books Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour. His latest book is Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, published by Bloomsbury in October 2004.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A stew of delicious history!,
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This review is from: Typhoid Mary (Paperback)
Typhoid Mary was a cook.That's the lens through which Anthony Bourdain filters his telling of her story. This is a bit longer than an essay & a bit shorter than an actual book, but a fun read. I especially enjoyed the parts where he talked about cooks & cooking & about the Irish women who immigrated to America during the potato famine. Also enjoyed reading about the foodies at the time. I like Anthony Bourdain. He's smart & funny & passionate about food. He writes well, too. I'm positive there are more in-depth academic tomes about Typhoid Mary with oodles of footnotes & citations & 10 or 12 different theoretical perspectives, but this one was just fine.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
not up to bourdain's usual standard,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Typhoid Mary (Paperback)
Bourdain is a brilliant writer, but his heart doesn't seem to be in this book. It feels as if someone asked him to write this book as an assignment, his usual style of pop-culture loaded hyperbole only takes off in a few chapters. Several entire chapters are filler copied from other sources.'Kitchen Confidential' and 'Cook's Tour' are definately his most inspired books. If you have read those as well as 'The Nasty Bits' and are hungry for more I highly recommmend his crime fiction novel 'Bone in Throat'.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Typhoid Mary Gets Her Due,
By Katherine McCarthy "kath e. miller" (Forest Hills, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Typhoid Mary (Paperback)
I am a fan of all things Bourdain - his writing, his traveling food fest "No Reservations," even the occasional stint as Guest Judge on "Top Chef." His passion for food, cooks, revering the animals that feed us (even the nasty bits.) Above all, his New York punk rocker attitude - snarky, cussing, cynical. Love him.Typhoid Mary, on the other hand, I knew nothing about. Knew she carried a plague from house to house and that some people died. Had no idea she cooked for a living. That she was dishing out lingering death as a side order for the swells who could afford her slaving in their kitchens. Didn't know about the hysteria that ensued or the relentless quest to find her. Who knew? Tony did. The fact that she cooked for a living had him on her side from jump street, and it's his fondness for kitchen workers that tempers this book. He gets into the nitty-gritty of turn of the 20th century attitudes - towards immigrants, women, hygiene, law enforcement. It's more of a long magazine article than a book, and certainly no scholarly treatise. The take away is that Mary was a tough old gal, lived a hard life, worked tirelessly, in denial about her affliction and its consequences. It's typically funny, well written, and perfect for an afternoon, or an airplane or subway ride. By the end, you'll sympathize with poor Mary, hidden away to wait out her years until she leaves the planet. It's a little book, but a good read.
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