Publishers Weekly
04/01/2019
Journalist Randall (The King and Queen of Malibu) delivers a fast-paced and well-researched narrative about the efforts to eradicate bubonic plague from San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century. The disease claimed its first victim in Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King in 1900 and then established itself over the next several years, threatening the entire country. Randall vividly recounts the efforts of Dr. Joseph Kinyoun, surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service and the city’s chief quarantine officer, and his replacement, Dr. Rupert Blue, to overcome corrupt politics, inaccurate journalism, and a disregard for Yersina pestis (the bacterium that causes plague) to convince state and local officials of the danger. Unlike his thwarted predecessor, Blue established ties to Chinatown, where the plague first appeared, and hired a Chinese interpreter who brought more cases of plague to his attention. When Blue focused on catching the flea-infested rats that surged through the district, rather than assuming the inhabitants were to blame, he succeeded in temporarily halting the disease’s spread. After the Great Earthquake of 1906, the plague flared up in other neighborhoods, this time mainly infecting white victims, and Blue’s extensive rat extermination program was successful again. Underscoring how prejudice, complacency, and willful ignorance can be as dangerous to public health as bacteria, Randall spins an action-packed and stirring tale. (May)
Shelf Awareness
"A fascinating, in-depth look at a little-known episode in American history.… The story of the bubonic plague outbreak serves as an excellent lead-in for Randall to examine the advances that created modern cities."
Wall Street Journal - Julia Flynn Siler
"A vivid, fast-paced and at times revolting history of the plague in San Francisco.… [Black Death at the Golden Gate] unfolds like a medical thriller."
Jason Fagone
"A haunting detective tale packed with villains and heroes."
Wall Street Journal
"A vivid, fast-paced and at times revolting history of the plague in San Francisco at the turn of the century. [Randall] describes in chilling detail how the disease can overwhelm the human body... The book unfolds like a medical thriller... With the latest upsurge in measles cases making the headlines, Mr. Randall's book is a timely reminder that public health challenges responsible for killing tens of millions of people world-wide are not confined to the past."
Booklist
"This story of an epidemic that wasn't is a gripping historical mystery and a key cautionary tale for our own time."
Tina Jordan Podcast
"A medical detective story... A mash-up of Erik Larson and Richard Preston... Randall is one of these writers who can take primary research—historical primary research—and just turn it into narrative."
Mary Roach
"David K. Randall has created a meticulously researched history that unfolds like a thriller. I raced through this book in two days (horribly, the span of time it took bubonic plague to fell a victim). The unlikely heroes—bacteriologists and public health officers with long, flowing beards—battle villains most vile: racism, rotten politics, disregard for science, and Yersinia pestis. Black Death at the Golden Gate is both a page-turner and a cautionary tale: those villains still lurk."
Nature - Tilli Tansey
"The race to identify, isolate and halt the disease is set against a rich background of official complacency, financial malfeasance, political intrigues and scientific disputes.… Randall’s account is pacy and gripping."
San Francisco Book Review - Jennifer Melville
"Black Death at the Golden Gate provides a fascinating glimpse into [a] forgotten chapter of American history.… Discrimination, bigotry, and greed are woven throughout this fast-paced, historical, non-fiction adventure.… This is a great read for anyone who enjoys history or medicine."
Randi Hutter Epstein
"David K. Randall is a spellbinding writer. He has turned a critical chapter of medical history into a riveting tale that reads like a detective novel, chock-full of scandals and intrigue.… Read Black Death at the Golden Gate because it’s a page-turner, but more important, read this book because the issues Randall spotlights resonate today."
New York Times Book Review Podcast - Tina Jordan
"A medical detective story... A mash-up of Erik Larson and Richard Preston... Randall is one of these writers who can take primary research—historical primary research—and just turn it into narrative."
Kirkus Reviews
2019-03-17
A complex tale of medicine, politics, race, and public health.
Reuters senior reporter Randall (The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of the Battle for Paradise, 2016, etc.) works his way through a story that is well-documented in the epidemiological literature but hasn't received much popular attention. At the end of 1899, bubonic plague broke out in Honolulu, with an unknown number of deaths and panic in its wake. Public health officials on the mainland knew that San Francisco was likely next, and they mounted a campaign of quarantine. Even so, crowded Chinatown, in the heart of the city, saw the first cases. A dilemma followed, with Marine Health Service bureau chief Joseph Kinyoun wrestling with whether to cordon off the area; writes Randall, "any harsh measures that might scare those living in the plague zone into fleeing outside the district would potentially expand the grip of the disease further." Working against Kinyoun were California's governor and San Francisco's mayor, who alternately denied the existence of the outbreak or demanded that it be hushed up, and even members of the Chinese community, who sued to end the quarantine when a plague had not been officially declared. Racism and corruption played their parts. In the end, Kinyoun was replaced with another public health officer, Rupert Blue, who, also against much opposition, was more successful in his campaign of "eliminating hundreds of thousands of rats from the streets and sewers." Chaos returned with the great earthquake that struck the city, and Blue, who ran into trouble with his bosses in Washington, was assigned elsewhere only to return to Randall's narrative decades later in Los Angeles, where plague had appeared. There are many moving parts to the story, and they don't always mesh neatly, but the author does good work in revealing the clamorous crash of public and private interests surrounding the outbreak—and, he notes, the bubonic plague still pops up from time to time in the U.S.
A tale that resonates with the outbreak of measles, mumps, and other supposedly contained epidemics today.
