What happens when the modern world faces a pandemic?  Despite hundreds of years of technological and medical advances the outcome may be eerily similar to what transpired during the Black Death, which devastated Europe in the 14th Century.  At least that’s what esteemed novelist Laura Kasischke (The Life Before Her Eyes) posits.  Isolated in a log cabin in the Midwest, former flight attendant Jiselle Dorn is caring for her three stepchildren. Her husband Mark, a pilot, is away more than he’s home. Her two oldest stepchildren, Sara and Camilla, hate her.  Her only close neighbors, the Schmidt’s, are doomsayers. The town of St. Sophia is small and ten miles away. Jiselle isn’t living the life she imagined.  Just as her mother warned, her handsome husband seems to be leaving the lion’s share of the child-rearing to her.  Could it be that he really wanted a nanny, not a wife?

Jiselle’s life isn’t easy when we meet her, but it’s not nearly as bad as it’s going to get.  The first famous person to die of the flu is Britney Spears.  The outbreak’s epi-center is a nursing home in Phoenix. Soon Americans are being shunned around the world. Mark’s plane is quarantined in Germany.  Jiselle becomes the children’s sole caretaker. The United States runs riot amid increased panic.  Periodic power outages increase in frequency and longevity causing food shortages.  St. Sophia is overtaken by looters and vigilantes.  Jiselle’s youngest stepson Sam begins to suffer from malnutrition.  Her husband stops sending money.    

            Unexpectedly amid the chaos and uncertainty Jiselle forges a bond with her step children.  She could easily have abandoned them when her husband cleaned out the bank account but she doesn't and they're grateful.  She's come to love the children despite her husband's negligence.  Kasischke has said that she was interested in exploring “the romance of motherhood” in this book and the relationship between Jiselle and the girls flowers over time offering a fulfillment too often only associated with amorous love. 

As the world unravels, a makeshift community forms in the log cabin.  Jiselle befriends her stepdaughter’s boyfriend Bobby and his father Paul.  She takes in a neighbor suffering from dementia and drives to Chicago to rescue her own crotchety mother.  Without electricity the children are forced to read and, surprisingly, they enjoy it.  They play charades and traipse through the woods.  Raised on a farm, Jiselle’s mother teaches the family much needed survival skills.  A goose wanders into the back yard and becomes a beloved pet. 

It’s a testament to Kasischke’s genius that she is able to so clearly imagine the consequences of a global disaster.  What do you have when you lose everything--when you are cast out of the “perfect world?”  According to Kasischke, we still have a lot.