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New reading project title unveiled
Debut novel to be featured in '08 'Tale for Three Counties'
Oct. 23, 2007
Local News
By Ben Beagle
bbeagle@batavianews.com
BATAVIA - A debut novel that has been described as absorbing, extraordinary
and striking, among many other remarkable adjectives is the choice for
the 2008 "Tale for Three Counties" community reading project.
Thomas Mullen's The Last Town on Earth is inspired by a little-known
historical footnote regarding towns that quarantined themselves during
the 1918 flu epidemic.
"It's historical fiction, but readers will find many issues to
discuss that are relevant today," Leslie DeLooze, the librarian
at Richmond Memorial Library who started the Tale project in 2003, said
after the selection was revealed.
DeLooze and 2004 Tale author Howard Frank Mosher announced the program's
next title Monday morning during a now-annual celebration of the Tale
program that was attended by about 50 people. After Mosher shared stories
about his career as a writer and his most recent book, On Kingdom Mountain,
he helped DeLooze remove a sheet of blue poster board from an easel
to unveil the 2008 Tale poster, which features the cover of Mullen's
book.
Mullen is scheduled to visit Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties for
a series of programs March 13 to 15, 2008. Area libraries will be scheduling
a series of book discussions in early 2008 leading up to the visits.
Beginning today, paperback and hardcover copies of The Last Town on
Earth are available for purchase at Richmond Memorial Library, 19 Ross
St.; Lee-Whedon Memorial Library, 620 West Ave., Medina; and Perry Public
Library, 70 North Main St., Perry.
Mullen's novel explores such topics as citizenship and patriotism during
wartime, morality, fear and the struggle between the individual and
society.
The Last Town on Earth takes place in 1918 as America is fighting a
war on foreign soil that has divided the nation. Also on the home front:
Rumors of the deadliest epidemic ever are causing panic.
The uninfected mill town of Commonwealth, Wash., votes to quarantine
itself, posting guards at the single road into town to prevent people
from entering or leaving town. One day, a starving, cold - and seemingly
ill - soldier comes out of the woods begging for sanctuary, which forces
the town's two guards to face an agonizing moral dilemma.
Mullen, in an e-mail to The Daily News, said he first got the idea for
his story a decade ago after reading a story about the 1918 epidemic
that mentioned how some uninfected towns reacted by blocking roads and
posting armed guards. He soon imagined a situation such as the one presented
in his book's opening chapter in which guards must decide what to do
with a stranger begging for food and shelter.
"In this memoir-happy, blog-happy age, one of the things I enjoy
most about both reading and writing fiction is the opportunity it gives
us each to see the world through other people's eyes," Mullen wrote.
Further research, led Mullen to discover the era was "a time of
surprising political repression and tense emotions about whether we
should be at war, as well as violent labor activity, both of which became
key parts of the story."
"There are characters in this book who disagree with each other
quite vehemently on life-or-death political and personal issues, and
through fiction I could debate the merits and try to understand the
nuances of these conflicting viewpoints," Mullen wrote. "Hopefully,
readers too can explore their own views and see, more clearly than before,
sides of the argument that they might not have before."
Last Town on Earth, published in August 2006, was named a best debut
novel of 2006 by USA Today, which said "Mullen's absorbing first
novel draws you in immediately, just like the deep, rich forests of
Washington state."
The novel also was named a best book of the year by the Chicago Tribune,
and one of the year's top 10 debuts by Amazon.com. It won the James
Fenimore Cooper Prize for Excellence in Historical Fiction.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called Last Town on Earth "a striking
debut" and The New York Times said in a remarkable first novel
"Mullen's suspenseful storytelling pulls us forward. Time and again,
his imagery - from the 'logs bobbing on the water's surface like corpses'
to the whole town, seen 'in full eclipse' - is devastatingly right."
Mullen, who lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and son, has done
book tours and readings at festivals. Tale is his first time as part
of a community reading project.
"I'm very honored to have my book chosen," he wrote, "and
I'm looking forward to hearing what people respond to in the book, what
they take away from it and what they bring into it."
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On the Net:
Tale for Three Counties Web site: www.taleforthreecounties.org
Thomas Mullen Web site: www.thomasmullen.net.
Courtesy of Batavia Newspapers Corporation