Beautiful Ghost by Milana Marsenich
What’s it About?
During the fall of 1918, the influenza pandemic crosses the nation and reaches the mining town of Butte, Montana.
What a beautiful way to describe how a deadly virus permeates a community:
“A tiny wisp of something rounds the air in his lungs and multiplies. It finds its way to his blood and bones. He doesn’t know he carries the fatal germ. He has no way of knowing that somewhere in the mine or on the street or in the newly opened taverns, the smallest of small creatures has landed on his shoulders, or fingers, or caught a tide on the hems of his pants or bootstrap. He has no way of knowing he transfers the creature by the film of his sweating lips left on the shot glasses at the tavern, the shake of another man’s hand.”
The above passage displays the literary prowess of author Milana Marsenich, whose delicate words capture the haunting subtlety and sensitivity of how a major virus creeps into our landscapes and our consciousness – in this case the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918, which was said to claim some 25 million lives around the world.
In Marsenich’s case, the focus is on a gritty copper mining city, Butte, MT. The machinations of that locale, its commerce, its scant grasp at hope, and the interrelationships between its people and professions are at the heart of Marsenich’s elegant yet terrifying novel, Beautiful Ghost.
THOUGHT-PROVOKING
The book continues the story established in the author’s prior book, Copper Sky, which introduces readers to two women traveling opposite paths: Kaly, a prostitute trying to find a better life for her children and herself, and Marika, with the dream of becoming a doctor. Their lives – and those journeys – intersect as Butte deals with an influenza pandemic gone out of control.
In the first pages, a stranger, having recently arrived by train from Philadelphia, is brought late to the doctor’s door in terrible shape — chills, headache, fever, clearly more than your typical flu. Marika, the doctor’s assistant and only one there, takes her in and tries to help. But it soon becomes clear she is beyond medical help.
While not firmly declaring that the patient, Amelia, brought the onset of the virus to Butte, a mystery unfolds as Marika takes it upon herself to discover Amelia’s background, contacts and secrets and understand what led this hapless person to Marika’s setting and her destiny.
It’s a town, the book gives the impression, where everyone knows everyone. Where one woman’s tavern acquaintance might be another’s former lover. Where characters from the bakery, bar and brothel all seem to overlap – or have “pasts” with one another.
BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN
It’s a tale where the routine dangers of working in the “bottomless bellies” of the mines are multiplied with the curse of the virus. References to a great fire and the hanging of a man named Frank Little keep resurfacing and serve to arouse further reader curiosity.
Milana Marsenich has painted a vivid and often-disturbing picture of an American town at a turbulent time in our history. She has introduced us to well-defined and flawed characters scratching and clawing to either achieve their dreams or merely survive. One can feel the soil on their faces and shoes, as the grave digger’s soft and eerie humming completes the hypnotic imagery.
Beautiful Ghost is a thought-provoking work that is beautifully written and tightly woven. As the author’s wolf dog character roves from scene to scene, readers are easily be mesmerized by what the dog sees – a world of pain and a world of workers, warriors, women and children wondering if there is such a thing as a better life.
Publish Date: 11/8/2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Author: Milana Marsenich
Page Count: 217 pages
Publisher: Open Books
ISBN: 9781948598613