She was known as Typhoid Mary. But her story is far more than a headline.
In Fever, bestselling author Mary Beth Keane reimagines the life of Mary Mallon—the first person in America identified as a healthy carrier of Typhoid Fever. Ambitious, proud, and fiercely independent, Mary rises from immigrant kitchen maid to sought-after cook in elite New York homes, only to become a public scapegoat for an invisible threat no one yet understands.
Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century New York, Fever is a vivid, thought-provoking novel about medical ethics, autonomy, and one woman’s relentless pursuit of agency in a world eager to control her.
For fans of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Ask Again, Yes, this is historical fiction at its most bold and human.
