Book Review: "The End of October" by Lawrence Wright
“The End of October” by Lawrence Wright
Synopsis: At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons--microbiologist, epidemiologist--travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city . . . A Russian émigré, a woman who has risen to deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security, scrambles to mount a response to what may be an act of biowarfare . . . Already-fraying global relations begin to snap, one by one, in the face of a pandemic . . . Henry's wife, Jill, and their children face diminishing odds of survival in Atlanta . . . And the disease slashes across the United States, dismantling institutions--scientific, religious, governmental--and decimating the population. As packed with suspense as it is with the fascinating history of viral diseases, Lawrence Wright has given us a full-tilt, electrifying, one-of-a-kind thriller. - Knopf
Rating: 4.5
Trigger Warnings: oh my god, there are so many - pandemic, death, disease, incompetent leadership
Review: Pardon my french, but this book scared the ever-loving shit out of me. How’s that for a start? I consider myself normally pretty calm, particularly around public health issues, but this is a book that I should not have read in the midst of COVID-19. This isn’t my first foray into pandemic fiction, but it was easily the one that hit the closest to home. If I didn’t know book publishing timelines, I would think that Lawrence Wright was writing in real time as we started lockdown.
The whole premise of this book is that there is an emerging novel disease (from…China) that cripples the world, and we go along with several characters as they try to stop it’s spread. We spend most of our time with Henry, a renowned epidemiologist, who ends up at following the virus around the world while he tries to stop it. We meet his wife, his children, and his colleagues — past and present — as we learn more about who he is as a person, and why he is so absolutely driven to find a cure here.
We also meet Tildy, a deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security, who is helping drive the American response. In another terrifying parallel to the current hellscape, the Administration is less focused on the health of America but rather on preserving their place in the world order and returning to “normal.” There’s also an undercurrent of simmering tension with Putin that really escalates as the book continues — I’m really hoping that isn’t 2020’s October surprise. Oh, and a psychopath that Henry used to work with kept popping up, but I can’t really say more about that without giving away some major plot points.
What was so unsettling about this book was how prescient everything was — Lawrence Wright correctly predicted what is actually happening in society right now, and it doesn’t make me feel good about the future of humanity. I really struggled reading the first 200 pages as it mirrored reality so closely, and I knew there wasn’t going to be a happy ending coming our way (in the book, I am more optimistic in real life). Once things took a turn — it’s hard without spoiling anything — it was easier to read, as it veered from real-life 2020.
This book was also impeccably researched, and it touches on a variety of issues from immunology to global politics to climate change to the habits of migratory animals and the ethics of biopharmacology. I am not exaggerating when I say that “The End of October” is epic in scope, and I do encourage any one who is interested in a well-written thriller or public health generally to read it. I would just personally wait until there is a coronavirus vaccine.
TL;DR: An almost-too-timely public health thriller about dealing with an unknown virus and the havoc it wreaks globally.
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