While writing his dissertation for his PhD in English from Princeton University, Richard Preston the author of The Hot Zone became fascinated with the idea that writing non-fiction articles and books can be written as powerful, and interesting narrative literature. Since then, Preston has written books exploring the hidden worlds in nature. The Hot Zone is a scientific, bio-thriller that focuses on and explores filoviruses, Biosafety Level 4 viruses, also known as “hot” viruses. These deadly viruses belong to a small family of “thread viruses.” Throughout the book, he focuses on the Marburg and Ebola viruses and strains within them.
Over a twenty-year period, the story weaves and twists between named victims in African villages, research on these lethal viruses in labs, and other background stories. He describes in detail how these viruses have surfaced, attacked, spread, and then retreated, disappearing back in to their hiding place in the African forest and bush while creating fear that these living viruses are still living, reshaping, and mutating, waiting to enter the human species again in a new form. He describes graphically the result of being infected by this complex deadly virus and shows how it spread within the villages and hospitals. He tells how the victims hemorrhage from the inside out, their organs and tissues becoming liquefied, consequently becoming a corpse before death. He discusses the scientists, lab techs, and doctors, their lives and the fear and risks of working with these hot microorganisms. He also offers up a theory on how this virus started, blaming the monkey trade for setting up a perfect environment to breed a unusual virus by jamming together different monkey species, and exposing them to one another's viruses back and forth. Preston details what these microscopic viruses look like and the precaution needed while working with these deadly strains. He then finishes with the 1989 outbreak of a hot virus in a monkey lab in Virginia. There are many tense moments while a SWAT team of soldiers and scientists wearing biohazard suits stop an outbreak of just miles away from Washington DC.
Preston does a great job of writing non-fiction like a fiction novel. Real life scientists, lab workers and doctors become developing characters and come alive with the Ebola virus as it wreaks havoc on the innocent. Preston captured my attention, advanced my understanding of scientific and social consequences of this deadly virus.
