The paired forces imposed by World War I and the 1918 Influenza pandemic fuel Thomas Mullen’s debut, “The Last Town on Earth.” And people caught in its grasp, living in a town trying to stay whole, find that retreating from the world provides anything but safety.
Commonwealth is an isolated timber town in Washington state, founded by mill owner Charles Worthy after the 1916 Everett Massacre. The bloody confrontation between union strikers and mill owners soured Worthy, the son of a mill owner, on a business approach designed to take maximum advantage of the workers. His brothers bought out his share of the family business and, with the help of his equally idealistic wife, Rebecca, Worthy establishes Commonwealth on land his father had thought too remote to be of use.
Putting his beliefs in practice, however, and thinking that offering decent housing and a living wage won’t harm a mill’s profitability, makes Worthy and his town suspect. Some of his peers think he’s crazy, others see him as a traitor.
The town is in its infancy, but Worthy’s ideas seem to be finding traction. Thanks to the war effort, all lumber mills are running at capacity. The town is a haven; some have come because they admire the ideals, others are there for the working conditions. It’s a socialist experiment that seems to be working. But the Spanish flu epidemic is hitting the neighboring towns hard, and mounting death tolls lead the townspeople to opt for a drastic course of action. They quarantine the town.
This is by no stretch a unanimous decision. Rebecca Worthy is particularly skeptical of the thought process and its outcome, but she is unwilling to publicly challenge her husband. The mill workers organize themselves into watch shifts, and Worthy’s adopted son Philip, 16, and mill foreman Graham Stone find themselves paired.
On the surface, it’s a good match. Philip sees Graham as a role model, and the older man doesn’t mind the hero worship. But the predictable world begins to unravel the day a lone soldier challenges the pair, seeking entrance into the remote town. He tells the guards that he’s survived a shipwreck, he’s lost, and that he’s just looking for food and shelter. He comes too close. Graham shoots and kills the would-be intruder.
It is a defining moment for both of the men. For Philip, the reality of the death weighs heavy. In the succeeding days, he struggles with the moral questions that weigh the town’s safety against one man’s life. Graham, the older and world-wearier of the two, faces a different conflict. His previous experiences, revealed in flashbacks, have taught him that everything he loves can slide away in the blink of an eye. The killing keeps him up nights, but he’s driven by the need to protect what he now has.
Word of the killing, meant to be kept under wraps, filters slowly through town. Those who were initially opposed to the quarantine decision find this event fuel for their fires. And as the quarantine stretches on much longer than anyone anticipated, the dreams that founded the town are brought into question.
Mullen has mined an interesting historical footnote in this allegorical novel. He writes in an endnote that Gunnison successfully tried the quarantine approach to avoid a flu outbreak that killed 100 million people worldwide. He brings in a variety of social issues, not the least of which include the bitter union struggles of the early 20th century and the work of the American Protective League, formed after Congress authorized legislation limiting First Amendment free speech rights after President Wilson entered the war.
Members of the league were deputized to seek out and turn in neighbors who spoke out against the war. Those who publicly disagreed with the government’s decisions could be punished under federal law. Mullen brings this neighbor-against-neighbor issue to the fore, and also explores the role and abuse of conscientious objectors. He paints an ugly picture, and one we’d hope is past.
But it’s easy to see how some of this might translate in the present. If perhaps, something like bird flu mutated to be a killer comparable with the Spanish flu pandemic, how might we react? And if that reaction achieves the desired result, what might be the cost? Also, given some of the more haunting provisions of the Patriot Act, how protected are those who might argue with federal decisions and policy?
Mullen raises some great questions. He’s not the most elegant of storytellers, and “The Last Town on Earth” isn’t a literary novel. But it’s one that keeps the pages turning and the reader thinking, neither of which is a small thing.
Robin Vidimos is a freelance writer who reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
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The Last Town On Earth
By Thomas Mullen
Random House, 416 pages, $23.95
