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Anthony Bourdain

Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical Hardcover – May 4, 2001

by Anthony Bourdain (Author)

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From the best-selling author of Kitchen Confidential comes this true, thrilling tale of pursuit through the kitchens of New York City at the turn of the century.

By the late nineteenth century, it seemed that New York City had put an end to the outbreaks of typhoid fever that had so frequently decimated the city's population. That is until 1904, when the disease broke out in a household in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Authorities suspected the family cook, Mary Mallon, of being a carrier. But before she could be tested, the woman, soon to be known as Typhoid Mary, had disappeared. Over the course of the next three years, Mary worked at several residences, spreading her pestilence as she went. In 1907, she was traced to a home on Park Avenue, and taken into custody. Institutionalized at Riverside Hospital for three years, she was released only when she promised never to work as a cook again. She promptly disappeared.

For the next five years Mary worked in homes and institutions in and around New York, often under assumed names. In February 1915, a devastating outbreak of typhoid at the Sloane Hospital for Women was traced to her. She was finally apprehended and reinstitutionalized at Riverside Hospital, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

Typhoid Mary is the story of her infamous life. Anthony Bourdain reveals the seedier side of the early 1900s, and writes with his renowned panache about life in the kitchen, uncovering the horrifying conditions that allowed the deadly spread of typhoid over a decade. Typhoid Mary is a true feast for history lovers and Bourdain lovers alike.

Print length

160 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bloomsbury USA
Publication date

May 4, 2001
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.71 x 7.3 inches
ISBN-10

1582341338
ISBN-13

978-1582341330
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Bloomsbury launches its "Urban Historicals" series with a pair of books on both New York's most infamous cook and what (if true) would have been the city's greatest hoax. Bourdain, the chef and author of last year's cheeky Kitchen Confidential, attempts to retell the story of Mary Mallon from a cook's perspective. Early in the last century, the Irish immigrant Mallon became notorious as "Typhoid Mary" and was imprisoned by health authorities on an island in the East River after (unwittingly or not) spreading typhoid to 33 victims, with three confirmed deaths. Like Lizzie Borden, Mallon has received various writers' interpretations, the last in a 1996 biography by Judith Leavitt of the same title (LJ 5/15/96) that told the tale with more health science and a less cranky style. Bourdain chooses to light the story's shadows by relating to her as a once-proud, broken-down cook, interpreting Mallon's infecting spree with a kitchen-hardened aplomb and New York attitude. Chapter titles tend toward the snarky and hip ("There's Something About Mary," "Typhoid sucks"), and only a New York guy would describe bacteria settling into a gall bladder "like rent-controlled pensioners." Yet when, at the work's end, Bourdain makes a cook-to-cook offering at Mary's grave, it somehow feels more moving than stagey. Rose, a novelist and founder of the 1980s literary magazine Between C&D, has created "an entertainment, a reimagining of a piece of the past that may well have been imagined in the first place." His light-handed telling concerns a possible hoax from about 1824, when a butcher and a carpenter in New York's old Centre Market purportedly discussed their plan to solve overbuilt Manhattan's dangerous bottom-heaviness by sawing it in half, turning the top part of the island around, and reattaching it at the Battery. Word spread, and the enormous project seized the imaginations of Manhattan's poor, who showed up by the hundreds with saws and shovels, while merchants set aside enormous stores of food for the expected work crews. So, at least, claimed one of the hoaxers years later in a conversation with his amateur-historian nephew. Instead of being the "Crop Circles" phenomenon of its day, however, there seems no reason to believe the sawing scam was put over on anyone beyond the credulous nephew who first recorded it; Rose is quite aware of this and puts this re-embroidered lore into entertaining context, along the way creating a charming, atmospheric portrait of old New York. He also notes some classic period cons (the 161-year-old slave who nursed George Washington; the embalmed mermaid) perpetrated by the era's proven master humbuggers. Nathan Ward, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In Typhoid Mary , Bourdain, renowned chef and author of Kitchen Confidential (2000), reexamines the legend of Mary Maflon, otherwise known as the infamous Typhoid Mary. Unwittingly responsible for an outbreak of typhoid fever in Oyster Bay, Long Island, in 1904, Mary, a cook, fled when authorities began to suspect that she was a carrier. Resurfacing in New York City, she continued to infect victims with the typhoid bacillus until she was caught and incarcerated by the authorities. Investing a tragic tale with a new twist, Bourdain plays historical detective, providing an entertaining and suspenseful evocation of turn-of-the-century New York. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (May 4, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1582341338
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1582341330
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.71 x 7.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #159,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #635 in Medical Diseases (Books)
- #755 in United States Biographies
- #3,337 in United States History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
611 ratings

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Anthony Bourdain

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Chef, author, and raconteur Anthony Bourdain is best known for traveling the globe on his TV show Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Somewhat notoriously, he has established himself as a professional gadfly, bête noir, advocate, social critic, and pork enthusiast, recognized for his caustic sense of humor worldwide. He is as unsparing of those things he hates, as he is evangelical about his passions.

Bourdain is the author of the New York Times bestselling Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw; A Cook’s Tour; the collection The Nasty Bits; the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo; the biography Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical; two graphic novels, Get Jiro! and Get Jiro!: Blood and Sushi and his latest New York Times bestselling cookbook Appetites. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Times of London, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Vanity Fair, Lucky Peach and many other publications. In 2013, Bourdain launched his own publishing line with Ecco, Anthony Bourdain Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. He is the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning docuseries Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on CNN, and before that hosted Emmy award-winning No Reservations and The Layover on Travel Channel, and The Taste on ABC.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

611 global ratings

5 star		64%
4 star		23%
3 star		9%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Alex

Humanizing a Looming Figure in Medical History

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 4, 2022

Verified Purchase

Bourdain is a master storyteller and if you found this book rifling through Amazon, that's likely why you're here.

You will not be disappointed.

Bourdain manages to take a look at Mary as a woman who lost everything through both chance and her own making. The book provides a wealth of context that doesn't allow Mary to be a blameless victim or a heartless monster. She's simply a person, who thanks to a disease she couldn't treat, lost her trade. Her life. Her ability to function in the world.

Did she have typhoid? Yes. She caused deaths. Intentionally, or knowingly, or not makes little difference.

Could she simply have washed her hands better and avoided detection? Also yes. But she was also a product of her time. Others did the same- or worse.

Mary Mallon was a walking disease vector. She was also a woman that moved to America to escape poverty and managed to make her way, only to have it snatched away from her.

The book does not excuse the harm she caused, nor the harm inflicted upon her by her captors. Necessary as her captivity may have been, she was treated horribly many times along the way.

If any of us were told that we were not allowed to do the one thing we could to improve our lives, wouldn't we be angry? Would we try to run?

Add to that the fact many people see their job as a part of their identity. What are you, when part of your sense of self is shorn away while you are still physically able to embody the identity you built?

Mulling all that, I am left with an amount of sympathy for Mary I did not expect.

Some of my buy in is admittedly based on my love of Bourdain's work. I have admired the man for many years. Much of this book is hypothesis, conjecture, and reconstruction.

Even knowing all that, I cannot shake the feeling that as much of a public threat Mary was, she deserved the little kindness given to her and then some.

Such is the power of storytelling.

Read it. This slapshod summary does not give this visceral book justice.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

robin

All about Typhoid Mary

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 4, 2022

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A straightforward partial biography of Mary Mallon, the infamous "Typhoid Mary." After reading this, you almost feel sorry for her. Mary was treated very badly by the New York Health Department, as if she were the only disease carrier who existed at the time. Others carried Typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis, but they weren't treated like Mary. Unfortunately, she carried the bacteria that caused a deadly disease and was made an example of, "in the interest of public health." A good read.

Helpful

Yarngirl52

Short compassionate tribute to Mary Mallon. Cook to cook.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 18, 2018

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Bordain dispelled the myth that Typhoid Mary infected thousands and killed hundreds in NYC around the turn of the 20th century. In fact, she may have infected less than 50 and of those only 3 died.

Marry was a cook and a quite good one at that. She worked in fine homes for the newly wealthy families. She was also Irish, driven from her homeland by hunger in search of a better life. She was a hard worker and to be accused of infecting others was an affront to her pride. She was not sick!

Bourdain explains what it means to be a cook and that some viewed others: customers, employers, the public with suspicion. So it was no small wonder that Mary resented all attempts to protect her and the public. She promised not to cook, but it was all she knew. She continued to cook and people continued to fall ill in her wake. Finally, the health department prevailed and hospitalized her for 23 years.

Was this legal? In 1909, yes, now, I don't know. Typhoid is not a big problem in the U.S. in 2018.

8 people found this helpful

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Apple

Unique view of typhoid Mary, cook to cook.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 30, 2018

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I really enjoyed Anthony Bourdain's story of typhoid Mary. He presents a fascinating correlation between kitchen workers in the 1800's and today. Further he takes the history of cooks back to Roman times and the frustration of cooks being on the lowest end of the economic ladder while being the people who feed households. Doing an incredible amount of research, Bourdain combined the remnants he could find of Mary's story, which probably began in Ireland, the Irish potato famine, the background that provides plausible reasons for her recalcitrance with Doctors, medical history, the story of typhoid, modern sewage and more. Bourdain does not try to offer any answers. Instead, his curiosity leads us back to a different time, although not that long ago, the mindset and classicism of society, the Victorian age and the plight of the less than wealthy, particularly women. As a cook and a chef Bourdain provides an insight far different from the medical community or a standard biography. Bourdain ultimately paints a picture of Mary that is true to life, poignant, miserable, and sad. Mary's life was less than exemplary but Bourdain's description reveals a person named Mary, not the "typhoid Mary" she became. Bourdain concluded the story by finding Mary's grave and giving her a gift. Cook to cook.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

The Lively's

I Learned a Great Deal of Fascinating Information

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 11, 2014

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A non-fiction historical account about the life of Mary Mallon, Mr. Bourdain's perspective is unique in that it views Ms. Mallon's life not only from her perspective, somewhat, but also from the perspective of a professional cook. While his adherence to this perspective is not strict, his analysis is well researched and feels very complete.

The story is engaging for the most part. The author's personal observations are entertaining and lively, however, a few of these side trips digress and detract. That said, I did come away educated not only about the life and circumstances of "Typhoid" Mary Mallon, but also about the times in which she lived.

A brisk read, I recommend reading this at times of the day, or night, distant from meals, especially if you're dining out at unfamiliar establishments. As I read this account, I had in my mind a three star rating. Upon completing it, and in retrospect, I had learned a great deal of fascinating information and genuinely felt that I had gained something from the experience. Increasing one's knowledge is a worthy exercise and Mr. Bourdain's offering indeed accomplishes this.

Well worth the short time it will take you to read.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

SueP

Informative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 28, 2021

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A light read but informative. In no way an academic work and little evidence to back up claims, but worthwhile just the same. The viewpoint of a fellow cook is an interesting slant.

falkon

Good account.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 30, 2021

Verified Purchase

Objective document.w

JOAO MARQUES LEITAO

Very good !

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 7, 2019

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Very good !

Richard Schwindt

Compelling read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 14, 2021

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Mary Mallon, “Typhoid Mary”, remains one of the most compelling characters of the first half of the twentieth century; for quirky reasons. In the midst of a pandemic, she is immediately recognizable; likely as a rabid anti-vaxxer. Anthony Bourdain, of the hyper-articulate voice in any medium, undertook to explain her in this wonderful book. With sensitivity to her person, time and place, Bourdain explains Mallon, from the vantage point of a cook. He does this, without whitewashing, extraordinarily well. Typhoid Mary is a riveting read, highly recommended, with Irish stew, and quick access to medical care.

Natalie.Alexa

I enjoyed it

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 31, 2017

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More a personal account empathising with Mary Mallon's hard life as a cook (the cuisine was fancy in 1906!) and an Irish immigrant than strictly a history or biography. I don't place too much stock in Bourdain's analysis of Irish history or culture (it's like grading undergrad papers, but it's not my field so I only suspect that's iffy), but the book was light and short and fairly compelling, with enough historical detail to make it evocative.

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Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical Hardcover – May 4, 2001

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