A gentle, uplifting wander through history’s Black Plague
The Blackest Time is told from the perspective of Gino Laini, a farm boy who dreams of becoming an apothecary in 1345. After the apothecary where he was training shuts down, Gino sets out for Florence to continue learning the trade.
On his own for the first time in a new city, Gino navigates finding housing, employment, and a community in the big city. With the plague looming over the city and years-long rain threatening food production, Gino and his family’s survival hangs in the balance of an unforgiving fate.
Gino’s positive spirit is infectious as he deals with roadblock after roadblock. His perseverance pays off, too, as he starts to learn the trade he is passionate about, builds a community in a new city, and does his best to take care of his family back home. He soon makes connections that have the ability to make permanent impact on the people around him and uses his limited resources to help those who are looked down upon or cast out by society. Even in the darkest of times, as the confounding illness begins to spread to the city and crops fail in the unrelenting rain, he does his best to help and heal those who need it.
The story operates with a slower pace, the plague not arriving in the narrative until around halfway through. Prior to the plague’s arrival, the story follows Gino leaving his hometown, finding his place in Florence, and forging his connections there. His day-to-day life is shown on the page as he helps new customers, makes friends, and experiences a burgeoning romance.
The complexities and the helplessness of the plague is captured exquisitely in The Blackest Time, showing that it was a combination of intersecting factors that made it so devastating. Not only was there a mystery illness killing unfathomable quantities of people during the Black Plague, but the perpetual rain and the resulting lack of food added greatly to the problem. It’s a powerful perspective, too, to show Gino, who wants more than anything to heal people, but who is dealing with an illness he can’t understand, let alone cure. His positivity is enduring even in the face of something so tragic though. He is sweet and caring to all of those around him, wanting to help even when it would be safer not to.
The Blackest Time is a fascinating close perspective on what we all know as the Black Plague, great for fans of historical fiction and plucky main characters.
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