Business is booming in Dymphna Cusack's Say No to Death, a story of post-war Sydney, black marketeering, and sacrificial romance. The same cannot be said for a public health system that struggles to offer a future for cash-strapped tuberculosis patients, such as the doomed heroine of this novel, Jan. For contemporary readers, however, the trajectory of Jan and Bart's relationship may seem less interesting than Cusack's evocation of the failings of government health policy in Australia and the fine account of this devastating illness in a city beset by wartime shortages. (Source: Susan Carson)
