Lit Hit List: Pandemic Fiction
For those of you that don’t know, I’ve worked in/around public health for all of my career (fun fact: my old boss is the White House Coronavirus Coordinator!), and so I have read probably more books about public health crises than the average person. Yes, I know I’m special.
I don’t want it to seem like we are taking the spread of COVID-19 lightly — trust me, we aren’t. I am actually dealing with it all day at my real job (shockingly, this blog hasn’t taken off enough to replace my corporate paycheck), and so it’s on my mind pretty much 24/7. I have been dreaming about coronavirus response mechanisms. Even when I take my favorite CBD to relax.
If you are feeling at all anxious about contracting the coronavirus, I don’t recommend picking up any of the books on this list. Go for something light and fun.
Putting my public health professional hat on for a second, in all likelihood, everyone that reads this blog post is going to be fine — follow CDC recommendations. Wash your hands (20 seconds!). Impose social distance (an introvert’s dream). Do what you can to not panic (read books, make sure to get outside, sleep, exercise, face mask, puzzle!). Recognize that this is going to get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. The news is scary right now, so disconnect in as many ways as you feasibly can to preserve your sanity.
However, if you’re like me, you may want to read about pandemics (in fiction! I promise!) — here are a few of my favorites:
“Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gael Garcia Marquez | Honestly, this is more of an epic romance than plague fiction to me, but it’s so beautifully written that I couldn’t not include it on my list (even though I personally prefer his other epic work).That said, Florentino is such a pain that at times, I wanted to throw my copy of this book across the room. This is a book that stirs a lot of emotions (both good and bad), and the pandemic is a minor character — maybe a good entry into this broader genre.
“Oryx and Crake” by Margaret Atwood | To me, Margaret Atwood is one of the queens of dystopian literature, and the MaddAddam trilogy is no exception. Her vision of a post-plague world is both brilliant and terrifying, with the same feel of social satire that’s prevalent in books like "The Handmaids’s Tale" and The Testaments (my review here). This one is super thought-provoking, as it made me consider notions of the social contract and the greater good.
“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel | If I didn’t know any better, I would think that Emily St. John Mandel had a crystal ball, looking into the future, because the situation in this book feels eerily familiar (Georgia Flu —> Wuhan Flu branding feels especially eerie). Do I think that COVID-19 is going to bring about the end of civilization as we know it? No. Do I think things will be immeasurably different for the next few years as we recover from this crisis? Yup. Do I still love this book that talks about the enduring power of art and creation and survival, even though it hits a little too close to home in 2020? Absolutely.
“The Book of M” by Peng Shepherd | The spread of this disease (or the Forgetting) in this book reminds me pretty closely of the spread of coronavirus, plus an element of the supernatural; to my knowledge, memory loss and special powers aren’t tired to this particular bug. Tonally, this one reminds me of “Station Eleven” in that it focuses on the human connections in times of fear and crisis as the world devolves into chaos due to memory-loss. I read this a few years ago, and I do remember feeling like it could be about 20% shorter, so be aware that it does meander a bit.
“The Dreamers” by Karen Thompson Walker (my review here!) | I reviewed this new-ish release in full, so if you want all my thoughts, I’d go read that post. In that review, I stressed that I really wanted to love this book because I loved the premise, but it left me with more questions than answers. Fair warning: this one is going to seem a lot like what we’re currently living through (it’s all about containment), so it may be not a great pick if you’re on self-quarantine.
“The Plague” by Albert Camus | Admittedly this one is a stretch because I read it in high school (once in English, once in French), but you couldn’t do this round up without this classic by Camus. It’s the first book about the social contract in an epidemic, and in my memory, it’s the one that all of them have to try to stack up against.
Others that I haven’t read yet but sound good:
“Andromeda Strain” by Michael Crichton | “The Dog Stars" by Peter Heller | “Lock-in” by John Scalzi | “Severance” by Ming Na
Some non-fiction recommendations:
“Spillover” by David Quammen (my friend Annie recommended this, and I just requested a copy from my library — each chapter is a different zoonotic disease) | “The Origin of AIDS” by Jacques Pepin (in my opinion, the seminal book about the spread of HIV) | “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston
