000			01268n a2200169 a 4500
001			042902
005			20231009192724.0
008			130625t2006----nyu-----------000-u-eng-u
020			_a9781565125582
082	0		_aFIC ALV
100	1		_aAlvarez, Julia
245	1	0	_aSaving the world _c/ Julia Alvarez
260			_aNew York _b: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill _c, c2006.
300			_a368 p. _c; 21 cm.
520			_aFiftysomething novelist Alma Huebner is finding many excuses not to work on the book for which she's already received a hefty advance. She is staying home in Vermont while her husband, Richard, a manager for a humanitarian aid association, has been assigned to work at an AIDS clinic in Alma's native Dominican Republic. The story she is considering is that of the 1803 Balmis Expedition, which brought smallpox vaccine from Spain to its possessions in the Americas and the Pacific in the first major public health project in the New World. Alma relives the expedition through the account of Doña Isabel, the mistress of the Spanish orphanage whose wards were the carriers of the vaccine. When interwoven with Alma's contemporary tale, it mirrors Alma's experience as her husband's clinic is overtaken by rebels and he is taken hostage.
942			_cMO
999			_c249534 _d249534