The setting for the book was in a port city in England during a cholera plague. I'm cheering you right up, huh? That's just the beginning of the horrors recounted.
People working long hours, child labor, superstition, class distrust, prostitution, lack of parenting skills, schizophrenia, lost hope, grave robbing, and the list goes on. Plus no employer ever took any pity on an employee (slave) who was injured.
I haven't thought as much about what a blessing it is to be living in this era as I should have. No matter what we think of our government, our sanitation laws, child welfare, and a host of other issues----we have made progress.
I had an instructor in nurses' training who always said, "Where have we been, and where are we going?" Well, I'm not predicting the future, but I'm happy I wasn't in the living conditions that existed then. It's a wonder that society survived long enough for us to get to this stage!
My friend passed this book along to me with a note that said she was eager to know what I thought of it. Fair warning. By the way, if you're up for it, the book is The Dress Lodger
by Sherri Holman. Do not consider this a recommendation-----it is not a relaxing beach book.
If you want to laugh at the beach read Janet Evanovich-----anything.
Happy Tuesday!
This book sounds too depressing for me but if it made you grateful for all we have, then it served a good purpose.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading several of Jodi Picoult's books right now, but will put your book on my 'to read' list. Sometimes it's good to read about those terrible events that came before us, to remind us. Life wasn't always peachy.
ReplyDeleteBut YOU are, my friend.!
Hugs
Jan
If I'm already grateful, can I skip the depressing read???
ReplyDeleteMy husband always says "Not so long ago things were very very different." I am in awe of how people lived before our current modern medicine. I've seen more miracles in the past 5 years at the Mayo Clinic and with each miracle, each successful transplant I think of the people who died from all of these different diseases and conditions that would have been saved, fairly easily, in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteI read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and that was an eye-opener! I couldn't imagine living like the people in that book. Whew!
I'm interested and horrified all at the same time.
I am a first time visitor and an avid reader. I would be interested in your suggestion so I will look for it. My MIL always said, "There was nothing good about the Good Old Days".
ReplyDeleteI have read Janet too. She is a good beach read. So is Karen White. On Folly's Beach and The Lost Hours are beach books too.