Book Review: The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid by Lawrence Wright

Book #195 of 2021:

The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid by Lawrence Wright

I’m sure there will be many works written in the time ahead that chronicle the ins and outs of the 2020 coronavirus outbreak and analyze the responses taken by various government leaders. This one, specifically focusing on the U.S. experience, is a strong start, although we’ll have to wait and see if it holds up as a classic of its kind. But I’m impressed with how thoroughly author Lawrence Wright synthesizes and presents his material, including behind-the-scenes personality clashes and wrenching details of the early days that I had already forgotten a mere year-and-a-half later. While there’s little here that would be truly new for our contemporary audience who lived through and followed the pandemic as it unfolded, it’s helpful to read an account like this that takes stock from a slight distance to craft a cohesive narrative.

I also appreciate the writer’s clarity on which policy actions did or did not successfully address the spread of the virus and whose judgment proved smart or prone to error on that front. It’s not a partisan hit job: a few Democrats get faulted, and certain decisions made by the Trump administration are praised. But Wright doesn’t pull his punches either in laying the majority of the blame for catastrophic mismanagement squarely on the former president. His supporters won’t like it, and some readers may feel that a journalist should avoid taking sides in this fashion, but the facts are the facts, and honest reporting can’t afford to feign neutrality in the wake of so much death.

I haven’t yet read this author’s medical thriller novel The End of October, which was greeted with astonishment in April 2020 for accurately predicting in his fictional pathogen the actual progression of the COVID-19 crisis. The present title addresses that in one of its rare memoir sections, explaining how all he did was listen to experts, research the existing models, and form a story out of what they were warning was a dire eventuality. Those voices weren’t listened to enough by the people in power, but the background knowledge they provided has now helped Wright construct this second and very different book as well.

★★★★☆

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