Book Review: "The Orphan Collector" by Ellen Marie Wiseman Is A Towering and Timely Literary Achievement

Ellen Marie Wiseman is a bestselling author of historical fiction. Her last novel, What She Left Behind, sold a half-million copies. Her books have been translated into 20 languages worldwide. Her prose is exquisite, and her storytelling skills are advanced. She’s an extraordinarily gifted and prescient writer with a deservedly large global following. 

But her new book, The Orphan Collector, is in a class by itself. 

A stunning achievement that unsurprisingly  became an almost-instant New York Times bestseller, the book takes you back to 1918 and drops you in the middle of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which eventually infected one-third of the earth's population and killed approximately 50 million.

The book reads as if it were torn from today’s headlines. Remarkably, though, it was completed early last year, months before the COVID-19 pandemic started. As I read this book, I had an almost out-of-body experience. You can't help but connect this story to life in 2020. For all of us. 

Some books just strike a deep and universal chord. This is one of them. It will all seem familiar to you: The riots and rage over the wearing of life-saving masks. The racial unrest and anti-immigration protestors. The preposterous theories about how to treat the virus. The political foolishness and corruption. The broken economy. The blatant xenophobia. The anxiety, fear, upheaval, and violence. And of course the rampant sickness and death. It's all there. 

But there is also profound humanity woven through it all. The story is both heart-wrenching and heroic. It is shocking at times and even horrifying, but there is a sweet and life-affirming center. The author bemoans the cruelty, evil and cowardice of the world but also exalts the kindness and courage. 

Dickensian, but with a much stronger woman’s perspective, The Orphan Collector is the story of a 13-year-old German immigrant girl stuck in the viral panic and longing to be far from Philadelphia’s chaotic slums and the ugly anti-immigrant fervor that compelled her German father to enlist in the U.S. Army. When her mother dies from the virus, the girl is left to take care of her two baby siblings. 

As she was writing the book, Ellen says she thought the most timely hook would be the way they mistreated immigrants just as we do now. Little did she know what was coming. 

From the early pages, I saw the potential to adapt this into a movie. It is cinematic. There are well-drawn characters that many of today’s top adult and child actors would love to play. I think this story would make for a wonderful and timely adaptation on one of the streaming networks: Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, CBS All Access, etc. 

But regardless of whether or not this book is ever made into a film -- and I'm confident that it will --  it works very well on the page. This is an instant classic, a towering literary achievement that pulls you in and does not let go. The Orphan Collector takes place a century ago, but it is one of the most "timely" books I have ever read. 

You can purchase the book here.