ISBN: 0-88739-371-3
192 pp.
Size: 6 x 9
Pub Date: 5/2002
Paperback Original
Price: $13.95
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Plague Year, The
John D. Wells
A twentieth century variation on Daniel Defoe's 17th century novel about the bubonic plague in Europe, The Journal of the Plague Year, John Wells' The Plague Year takes place in 1995 at a small college in Virginia. When a favorite professor is fired from the Theater Department, two students, Danny, a quiet, unassuming journalist for the student paper, and Emily, who has been challenging him to up the ante on the columns he writes, join forces to find out why. The administration is unforthcoming, but it doesn't take them long to discover that Professor Byrd was fired because he was HIV positive. As Danny and Emily delve deeper, their growing earnestness about their investigation clashes with the narcissism and superficiality of their classmates. When they notice a number of other strange policy changes, they begin to suspect that the firing was part of a plan by a certain member of the school board to transform the college into a conservative bastion of "family values."
Finally, Defoe's novel rises to the surface of Wells' and Emily has a dream where Defoe's voice tells her to find a "journal" which will answer all her questions. Meanwhile she and Daniel discover that their AIDS-afflicted fellow student Jody is sleeping with as many men as possible...and that Jody is the favorite niece of the conservative board member.
Bio: JOHN D. WELLS is a professor of sociology at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. He has written numerous articles on the relationship between rock-and-roll performers and American society, and on the images of men in American film.
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