It is rare that I have the time to pick up a true book with the wood-based paper and the smell of parchment that slips through my fingers as I turn the pages, but I did pick up As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner and it was a great read! Set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu of 1918, it is a wonderful story about a family dealing with all the crisis of the influenza pandemic. This family, however, has a bit of a twist. For the uncle and father’s job is undertaker, so we see the story from a slightly different perspective-that of the privacy yet beauty in death.

Pauline and Thomas, fresh with grief from the death of their baby son, move with their three daughters, Evelyn, Willia and Maggie, from a tobacco farm to Philadelphia where Thomas will learn to be a mortician from his uncle. The flu pandemic begins within months of their arrival and the father is called to work as a medic for the army. During a humanitarian trip to a poorer area of the city, Maggie discovers a baby boy in an apartment full of dead or dying people. She takes the child, convinced God is giving him to her family since her own brother died. As the family struggles with the newborn and the overwhelming amount of work  in the funeral palor, the disease strikes their own family and does not leave them unscarred.

What drew me most to this story was the parallels with our own lives at the moment. From schools being canceled to being quarantined from friends, ones draws an instant connection with the characters (and they didn’t have Zoom to get them through it.) Near the beginning, there was a parade to support the war effort. People begged the mayor not to allow it, but he, like many of our contemporary politicians, did not listen--a week later over 2,000 Philadelphians were dead and the morgue, that held a capacity of 36, was besieged with hundreds of bodies. Yes, history, really does repeat itself.

If you like historical fiction and love to look at the parallels in history, I highly recommend As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner. Although fiction, it gives the reader a great look at the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 and helps us recognize our own selves and our struggles in generations past.