The Poison Plum

Yesterday, I gave myself marijuana-eyes from reading all day long. Being in an airplane with low oxygen levels and dry air didn't help matters, and I'm sure my flight companions thought I was crazy for not lifting my eyes from my book during an entire three and a half hour long flight. But if my eyes and brain had allowed it and a longer flight would have ensued, I might have finished off Les Roberts' 482-page novel, The Poison Plum, in one day. It entranced me THAT much.

Because the book is about Lyme disease and its supposed origins, of course I was more interested in it than your average reader. The exciting events of the story gripped me, but the truths that I found therein were what kept me going, long after my eyes started smoking.

What truths? You may ask. His book is a work of fiction, isn't it? Well, yes, but...some would say that the shocking events of the book have more than just a casual basis in reality. And I'm not just talking about the general correlations that fiction makes with reality. I mean, there's stuff in there that has happened outside the world of fiction.

But I don't know what all of those events are. And as my eyes were smoldering last night, I desperately wanted to know. For the sake of humanity and justice, I wanted to know. But then again, I didn't.

You might know about that vicious lab off the coast of Connecticut that supposedly created borrelia and a million of its cronies, but what you might not know is that there's much more to this story than borrelia's creation and accidental release.

I will say this; If you read The Poison Plum, besides being entertained, you will gain insights into why Lyme disease is so difficult to treat; why it is ignored by the medical community, and why the government will not invest in research for it...as well as receive the answers to many other questions. You may also empathize with one of its main characters, whose son suffers from Lyme disease.

There's much more to say about Roberts' amazing work, but I'm going to stop here and let your eyes do their own smoldering and your mind dash off to its own conclusions.

Mr. Roberts is a gutsy guy, but you know, when it comes to justice and the things we are passionate about, often nothing can, or should silence us from expressing Truth. May it always remain so.