Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg (2005)

This is by the author of Bee Season, an unusual book, as is this one. The setting is Boston early 20th century, centering around the flu epidemic of 1918, where more people lost their lives than in all the wars of the century. The main story line follows working class Lydia, who works in an apartment store, then marries an intellectual man Wickett, they invent Wickett's Remedy, and she ends up working on Gallops Island, helping with research on the epidemic. Her story is intertwined with various others, including Quentin Driscoll, the owner of QD Soda company. Since I was listening to the book instead of reading it, in the beginning it was disconcerting to hear different voices and lead-ins with varied sound effects. I was forced to go look at the copy in our library, so I could see the printed version. Goldberg uses alternate ways to tell the story or give various sides to the story:
1. The whole book is full of side notes - comments printed in the outside margin of the book - like notes one would write when studying a text book. These side notes are most often comments from a person mentioned in the main story. Someone's thoughts at the time, remembering Lydia or an incident a different way. Sometimes the person has already passed away, but comments on how it "really was" for them.
2. Actual articles from the newspapers of the times, mostly strange human interest stories or letters to the editor about public spitting, lack of phone service, etc., all giving a flavor of the crisis. (These were accompanied by obnoxious newsroom sounds.)
3. Articles from the QDispatch, a fictional newsletter of the QD Soda company, that give the story of Quentin Driscoll and his soda empire. (These were accompanied by a cheery jingoistic kind of music and read by a high pitched female voice.)
4. Letters (accompanied by typing sounds) from various characters, sometimes you don't know who is writing, but you figure it out in the end.

Goldberg ties everything together in the end, but not necessarily in a satisfying way. Then again, the world doesn't always work out the way we would like, and this one definitely did not, but it was still an intriging book. It appeals to me as historical fiction with wonderful insights into the life of those times (she had done her research), differences in classes, men going of to the war in Europe, medicine at that time, etc. Goldberg gets points from me for thanking reference librarians for helping her with the research.