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Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg
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Wickett's Remedy

A Novel

A Novel

A Novel

By Myla Goldberg

By Myla Goldberg

By Myla Goldberg

By Myla Goldberg

By Myla Goldberg
Read by Myla Goldberg, David Aaron Baker, Chris Burns and Ilyana Kadushin

By Myla Goldberg
Read by Myla Goldberg, David Aaron Baker, Chris Burns and Ilyana Kadushin

Best Seller
Paperback $23.00

Oct 10, 2006 | ISBN 9781400078127

Ebook $4.99

Jul 07, 2010 | ISBN 9780307493170

Audiobook Download $19.98

Sep 20, 2005 | 660 Minutes

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    Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg
    Paperback $23.00
    Oct 10, 2006 | ISBN 9781400078127

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    • $23.00

      Oct 10, 2006 | ISBN 9781400078127

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Jul 07, 2010 | ISBN 9780307493170

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Sep 20, 2005 | ISBN 9780739322338

      660 Minutes

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Buy the Audiobook Download:

    About Wickett’s Remedy

    Lydia Kilkenny is eager to move beyond her South Boston childhood, and when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy Boston Brahmin who plans to become a doctor, her future seems assured. That path changes when Henry abandons his medical studies and enlists Lydia to help him invent a mail-order medicine called Wickett’s Remedy. Then the 1918 influenza epidemic sweeps through Boston, and in a world turned upside down Lydia must forge her own path through the tragedy unfolding around her. As she secures work as a nurse at a curious island medical station conducting human research into the disease, Henry’s former business partner steals the formula for Wickett’s Remedy to create for himself a new future, trying—and almost succeeding—to erase the past he is leaving behind.

    Alive with narrative ingenuity, and tinged with humor as well as sorrow, this inspired recreation of a forgotten era powerfully reminds us how much individual voices matter—in history and in life.

    About Wickett’s Remedy

    Lydia Kilkenny is eager to move beyond her South Boston childhood, and when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy Boston Brahmin who plans to become a doctor, her future seems assured. That path changes when Henry abandons his medical studies and enlists Lydia to help him invent a mail-order medicine called Wickett’s Remedy. Then the 1918 influenza epidemic sweeps through Boston, and in a world turned upside down Lydia must forge her own path through the tragedy unfolding around her. As she secures work as a nurse at a curious island medical station conducting human research into the disease, Henry’s former business partner steals the formula for Wickett’s Remedy to create for himself a new future, trying—and almost succeeding—to erase the past he is leaving behind.

    Alive with narrative ingenuity, and tinged with humor as well as sorrow, this inspired recreation of a forgotten era powerfully reminds us how much individual voices matter—in history and in life.

    About Wickett’s Remedy

    The triumphant follow-up to the bestselling Bee Season, Wickett’s Remedy is an epic but intimate novel about a young Irish-American woman facing down tragedy during the Great Flu epidemic of 1918.

    Wickett’s Remedy leads us back to Boston in the early part of the 20th century and into the world of Lydia, an Irish-American shop girl yearning for a grander world than the cramped confines of South Boston. She seems to be well on her way to the life she has dreamed of when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy medical student and the scion of a Boston Brahmin family. Soon after their wedding, however, Henry shocks Lydia by quitting medical school and creating a mail-order patent medicine called Wickett’s Remedy. And then just as the enterprise is getting off the ground, the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 begins its deadly sweep across the world, drastically changing their lives.

    In a world turned almost unrecognizable by swift and sudden tragedy, Lydia finds herself working as a nurse in an experimental ward dedicated to understanding the raging epidemic — through the use of human subjects.

    Meanwhile, we follow the fate of Henry’s beloved Wickett’s Remedy as his one-time business partner steals the recipe and transforms it into QD Soda, a wildly popular soft drink.

    Based on years of research and evoking actual events, Wickett’s Remedy perfectly captures the texture of the times and brings a colourful cast of characters vividly to life, including a sad and funny chorus of the dead. With wit and dexterity, Goldberg has fashioned a novel that is both charming and grand. Wickett’s Remedy announces her arrival as a major novelist.


    South Boston belonged to Lydia as profoundly and wordlessly as her thimble finger. Her knowledge of its streets was more complete than any atlas, her mental maps reflecting changes that occurred from season to season, day to day, and hour to hour. Each time she left 28 D Street — one among a row of identical triple-decker houses, the tenements lining the street like so many stained teeth — her route reflected this internal almanac. . . .

    For ten years this was enough. Then in fifth grade, Lydia saw a city map and realized her entire world was a mitten dangling from Boston’s sleeve. Across the bridge lay Washington Street — the longest street in all New England — which began like any other but then continued north, a single determined thread of cobblestone that wove itself through every town from Boston to Providence. Once Lydia saw Washington Street she knew she could not allow it to exist without her.
    —excerpt from Wickett’s Remedy

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    Also by Myla Goldberg

    The False Friend
    Time's Magpie
    Bee Season
    The Commemorative
    See all books by Myla Goldberg

    Also by Myla Goldberg

    The False Friend
    Time's Magpie
    Bee Season
    The Commemorative
    See all books by Myla Goldberg

    Also by Myla Goldberg

    The False Friend
    Time's Magpie
    Bee Season
    The Commemorative
    See all books by Myla Goldberg

    About Myla Goldberg

    Myla Goldberg is the author of several books, including The False Friend, Wickett’s Remedy, and the bestselling, critically acclaimed Bee Season, which was widely translated and adapted to film. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

    About Myla Goldberg

    Myla Goldberg is the author of several books, including The False Friend, Wickett’s Remedy, and the bestselling, critically acclaimed Bee Season, which was widely translated and adapted to film. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

    About Myla Goldberg

    Myla Goldberg is the author of several books, including The False Friend, Wickett’s Remedy, and the bestselling, critically acclaimed Bee Season, which was widely translated and adapted to film. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $23.00
    Published by Anchor
    Oct 10, 2006 | 384 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9781400078127

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $4.99
    Published by Anchor
    Jul 07, 2010 | 384 Pages | ISBN 9780307493170

    Category: Literary Fiction | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $19.98
    Published by Random House Audio
    Sep 20, 2005 | 660 Minutes | ISBN 9780739322338

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    Praise

    “Brilliant. . . . A wonderfully courageous second novel.” –Newsday

    “Remarkable. . . . A historically credible account of the period just after America entered the First World War, when ‘the Spanish Lady’ laid waste to Boston and much of the rest of the country.” –Salon

    “Her second novel is of a piece with [Bee Season] in its invention and stylistic skill. . . . A warmhearted, unusual and intelligent consideration of a world about which few people know.” –San Francisco Chronicle

    “An engrossing look at how one young woman grows through personal losses at a time when so many lost so much.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer

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