One Flea Spare

The sparse, yet poetic language of Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare is layered in powerful sexual subtext. Set during the great London Plague of 1665, the action takes place in a single, boarded-up room in a once grand house where the wealthy gentleman, upper-class merchant William Snelgrave and his subdued wife, Darcy, wait out a month-long quarantine. Just before their captivity ends, the process begins anew when two unwanted visitors sneak in. They are Bunce, a rough-hewn seaman, and Morse, the 12 year-old who may or may not be the surviving daughter of a neighboring family. Stirring the pot from time to time is Kabe, a black market schemer, and one of the guards assigned to make sure no one breaks quarantine.