This Time of Dying

Told through the eyes of the two main characters - funeral director, Henry and school teacher, Allen - 'This Time of Dying' completely takes the reader back to the those awful three weeks in 1918 when influenza spared no corner of the globe killing between (an estimated) 50-100 million people.

Wonderfully written, the reader will no doubt feel a personal loss for the dying and dead in this book - as did I. When two of the book's characters died unexpectedly towards the end, I found myself grieving for them which is the result of James' writing.

Readers may find it a bit odd that Allen is female and not male - I found it difficult to get used to at first, but overall a very detailed and eye-opening account of a tragic period in our world's history.

This Time of Dying: three weeks in 1918 (7/7 people found this helpful)

The Great War is drawing to a close when the influenza epidemic of 1918 takes its hold. Set in London during a three week period, this novel conveys the horror of the war and, with the end of the war almost within reach, the emergence of the deadly influenza pandemic which killed millions around the world.

At the same time as conventional society is crumbling through the combined impacts of war and influenza, class distinctions remain important. Henry Speake, the undertaker, is the central character in this novel. His friendship with a widow, Mrs Allen Thompson, causes them both considerable social grief because of class differences.

This is not a light read but, once started, I found it very hard to put down. This is Ms James's first novel, and it is beautifully presented. Amongst the pain and suffering are some wonderful examples of humanity and the glimmerings of hope for a better future.

Highly recommended.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

"The thing that marks this out is that the old are surviving and the young are not" (6/10 people found this helpful)

In Reina James' debut novel This Time of Dying a sense of Edwardian propriety plays out against the horrors of the 1918 influenza flu epidemic. The first cases of the plague in Britain appeared in Glasgow in May 1918 and it soon spread to other towns and cities. In London, desperate methods were used to prevent the spread of the disease, streets were sprayed with chemicals and people wore anti-germ masks, but despite these valiant attempts, most of treatments devised to cope with this new strain of influenza were completely ineffectual.

When Dr Thomas Wey suddenly collapses and dies outside of Henry Speake's funeral parlor, he leaves behind a letter addressed to Sir Arthur Newsholme, Principal Medical Officer of the London Administrative Board which warns that if the movement of troops are not stopped and the ports are not closed, the world will face an imminent plague so virulent that it could wipe out all humanity.

Henry's first thought is that Wey is most likely a lunatic and having no idea what Wey died of, Henry decides not to post the letter. The sudden rise in sickness, however, and the increase in deaths from a mysterious unexplainable flu becomes almost impossible for Henry to ignore, especially when the effects of it hit close to home and Henry's young nephew Samuel suddenly dies of the infection just after he returns from the Western Front.

Henry also notices that Samuel's purplish-blue coloration is similar to that of Wey's, in fact, many of the deceased are grayish in colour, and almost veering towards blue. Throughout his career, Henry has had no shortage of grim sights, and the sight of these flu victims, bloated and blue end up turning his stomach. So late at night Henry seeks consolation from the epidemic by playing his beloved piano and also finding a measure of comfort thinking about Allen Thompson, a middle-aged schoolteacher whom he has attended the occasional concert recital with.

Allen herself must also face the tremendous challenges of the epidemic. Appalled that her school has been forced closing because of sickness Allen stays at home, left to care for Lily, her bed-ridden older sister, who in turn is becoming increasingly paranoid over the movements of their maid Ada, whom she is convinced is a German spy out to poison her.

Under so much pressure, it's not surprising that Allen finds herself drawn to Henry, even though everyone is quick to remind her that he's considered far below her station. Regardless of what her work colleagues say, Allen finds reassurance in Henry's stoicism and steady likeability, and also in his music, the simple remedy of this new experience doing much to invigorate her.

All of James' characters are eventually forced to confront the reality of their situation. Ellen along with her college and best friend Ruth visits the houses of the sick and dying, feeding the surviving children and bathing the dead in preparation for the arrival of the undertakers. After all, this is a world where entire families who had been bought to bed.

While Henry's older sisters Sarah and Nora help out as best they can, Henry is determined to keep up a correspondence with Rose, his younger sister in New Zealand, hoping against hope that her isolation on the other side of the world will keep her safe from the outbreak. Meanwhile, the sheer number of people falling sick overwhelms Dr Tite at the same time as the poor Ada is forced to secretly harbor her girlfriend Gladys in Allen's house when she suddenly comes down with a fever and a terrible headache.

In the interim, the selfish Lily stays ensconced in her bedroom, having no gift for conversation and punctuating silences with outbursts of ill-considered opinions, even going on a hunger strike while also demanding once and for all that Allen get rid of Ada.

With the sick and the dead mounting, Henry, and indeed the other funeral directors, find themselves under increasing pressure, the important thing is the need to get the bodies buried and out of the way of the living, even though they are being hampered by low supplies of wood and not enough men to dig the graves " we'll end up wrapping the bodies in shrouds and burying them in the pits. All the while the government seemed to exist in a state of denial, refusing to take a hand to it.

James excels in bringing this repellant subject matter to life as she describes the locked and deserted shops each with its hand-written notice that says, "closed due to sickness!" and people constantly walking the streets with their heads lowered, their hands on their pockets, compact, masked, trying desperately warding off infection by means that in most cases ultimately proves quite useless. It's almost impossible to imagine how these people coped with the wave of death and illness that swept across their communities, decimating almost everyone in its path.

Certainly there's an innate stoicism that drives these people to keep going - at one stage Henry admits, "so long as we were able to work, we had no choice but to carry on." Perhaps it's a testament to his courage and fortitude that he can maintain this attitude in the face of a world where the body can hardly draw breath, where it's wounds are open, and where death is crossing every sea, intent to leave no nation untouched. Mike Leonard June 07.

This Time of Dying (9/10 people found this helpful)

A man of courage, a man of compassion, a man of conviction, a man of integrity. Such a person is Henry Speake. A funeral Director at the time of the Spanish Flu in 1918, Henry Speake deals with the intense horror of what is to become a world wide pandemic. In this very well written book, we are transported to a time and place evocative of post Edwardian England, an England trying to deal with the aftermath of the First World War, and now having to cope with this mysterious outbreak of influenza. Henry, in the course of his work, almost literally goes from house to house, laying out the dead. In that journey he meets Allen Thompson, a schoolteacher, who is seeing her class being decimated by this terrible disease. During the course of the book, a fondness for each other grows to the chagrin of people in the neighbourhood who feel that she is liaising with a person below her station. A letter comes in to the possession of Henry, rather fortuitously, addressed to the Local Government Board, following the death of a Dr Thomas Wey, which seems to predict an imminent plague that apparently will leave the world to the animals. This seems to convince Henry that this virus is not an ordinary bout of influenza. Allen also has her problems, notably a paranoid Sister, who seems to think that there are Germans hiding in the house, and that the maid, Ada, is carrying the Influenza virus. Ada has a friend, Gladys, who contracts the flu and who Ada takes to her own room in Allen's house to look after her; she eventually dies, leaving yet another body that needs burial. This book transports you to the time and place so completely that it takes a while after reading it to return to the 21st Century, the characters are very well rounded and it is easy to relate to them and consequently to empathise with them in their plight. It must have been an absolutely awful and terrifying time and this is conveyed very well in what is, I hope, the first of many books by a very competent writer. The use of italics when Henry is conveying his thoughts is inspired; it really draws you to him. I was surprised how quickly the story finished; I felt that I had only read two thirds of the book. This is a minor quibble, however, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book, if the word enjoyed can be used for such subject matter, and it is greatly recommended as a very good work of historical fiction. Authors of such works are legion, but `This Time of Dying' shines through and will, I am sure, stand the test of time.

Interesting and Insightful (8/8 people found this helpful)

What an insight into the major killer of the flu empidemic after World War 1 . Told in narrative form through the lives of a funeral director and a woman of a different class from him, a romance in the midst of a terrifying disease, the story captured me from the start.
Beautiful writing of a story sensitively told. I heartily recommend this book.

Reina James

Reader Reviews:

A Very Insightful Read (1/1 people found this helpful)