World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic is the backdrop of the story of Commonweath, a town that has decided to quarantine itself to keep the sickness out. No one is allolwed to leave and no one to enter.
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When a stranger tries to get in, he is killed by one of the guards posted to keep people away. Another stranger, Frank, tries to enter, and Philip Worthy, the town's founders adopted son, has no choice but to let him in when they point guns at each other. A friendship develops when Philip and Frank are locked away from the town until it can be determined if Frank brought in the flu.
When the flu suddenly attacks the townspeople, they turn on each other in suspicion. The town's only employer, a lumber mill owned by Charles Worthy, is shut down due to employee illness. The quarantine is lifted. The townspeople are weakened from lack of food, since they couldn't leave town during the quarantine, and also by sickness and caring for sick family members. Tempers flare, exacerbated by men from Timber Falls, a nearby town, coming to arrest those who failed to register for the draft. Some men are beaten, families threatened. When the flu subsides, what will be left of the town?
The review of this Book prepared by Jan Lamers