A historically-based novel first published eight years ago by a Michigan writer about a deadly disease that suddenly sweeps through a New England town in 1796 has gained added impact from this year's pandemic.
Despite the more than two century time difference, many of the characters and incidents in "Quarantine" sound eerily familiar today. They include people defying authorities' orders to shelter in place, a mysterious new illness that baffles doctors while killing all ages, and health-care workers risking their lives to treat the sick.
"We actually have seen a bump in Quarantine's sales within the past month, as lock-down continues, at around 25%," Promotions Editor Elise Jajuga said at Michigan State University Press, which published a paperback version of the book in 2019.
The hero of "Quarantine" is a doctor who dies near the book's end of the highly contagious fever. The disease arrives in the town's harbor on a ship from the West Indies. Although the ship's crew were ordered to stay put, under a quarantine imposed by the harbormaster, three groups sneak ashore after dark. They bring the deadly illness, just as airline passengers from Asia and Europe brought COVID-19 to the U.S.
We reached author John Smolens of Marquette at his home in walking distance of Lake Superior. Smolens, 70, retired five years ago after decades of teaching English literature and creative writing, mainly at Northern Michigan University although he spent 11 years at MSU and several at Western Michigan University.
Smolens wrote "Quarantine" years before COVID-19 struck. MSU Press recently reissued it in paperback and as an e-book. When he wrote it, Smolens said, he had no idea that events and people in his novel would someday resemble those in a modern pandemic. (Interview was lightly edited for clarity.)
