AustLit

'Anthology of short stories by various writers about the 'Spanish Flu' epidemic in Queensland. Each story is based on real people in real places. The first stories are about Queenslanders who died of the 'Flu' before the disease reached Queensland--including a soldier from Maryborough who died in France, an Italian from North Queensland who caught the disease in New Zealand and died at Sydney, and a nurse who lost her life while treating soldiers at Fremantle. There are stories from quarantine camps at Tenterfield, Wallangarra, and Lytton, as well as hospitals in Brisbane, Ipswich, and Toowoomba. Some of the stories are about medical professionals, but other stories are about ordinary people doing extraordinary work fighting the dangerous Flu in their own families or communities. The characters embody the courageous spirit with which so many Australians fought the pandemic in their own local areas. The final story is from Thursday Island, one of the last places on earth to suffer an outbreak of the Flu in early 1920.' (Publication summary)