Pandemic Fiction Picks: Strength through Adversity
Back in the first months of the pandemic when uncertainty was at its height, I turned on the TV, looking for something light and mindless. Instead, under “most popular” movies, it stared back at me: Outbreak.
Running a close second and third were Contagion and The Stand.
“Who would want to watch these, especially now?” I grumbled as I clicked past the suggestions. “What’s wrong with those people?”
Fast forward a year. It appears I have become one of “those people.”
I didn’t set out to read a bunch of pandemic fiction, but as the crisis has dragged on, it just sort of … happened. Perhaps because I’m trying to make sense of this strange new world we’ve been trapped in, to learn from others’ experiences. Or maybe because there’s some twisted comfort in reading stories in which other people have faced even worse.
Either way, if you’re feeling the same, here are some new and classic works of pandemic/plague fiction I recommend:
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
Set in Dublin during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, this novel left me hopeful and uplifted despite its subject matter. The story focuses on a nurse who works in the maternity ward of a poor Irish hospital and her heroic efforts to save the lives of her patients.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Inspired by the real-life death of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet to bubonic plague in 1596, this novel focuses on Shakespeare’s gifted, unconventional wife and how she holds the family together amid tragedy. Although I normally avoid novels that revolve around the death of a child, I’m glad I made an exception for this book. It is well worth all the heart-wrenching moments I usually side-step (at least until my kids are grown) for its imagined, bittersweet insight into the family of one of the world’s most famous playwrights.
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
This is book is non-fiction, but I thought it was speculative enough to put on this list. The premise imagines that humans have “disappeared” from the planet and outlines what would happen to the world afterward, based on exhaustive interviews with scientists and other experts.
True, it sounds horrifying to put yourself in the mindset that our doom is inevitable. But if you’re already there – say, you’re convinced that even after we get through the pandemic, there’s a whole environmental catastrophe just waiting around the corner– it is oddly soothing to read a step-by-step account of skyscrapers falling and forests regrowing.
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
Looking for something lighter? Set in a college town where a rapidly spreading illness causes its victims to fall into an endless state of dreaming, this novel is more speculative mystery than scary dread-fest. It is gorgeously written and, for those with a short emotional bandwidth right now, has a relatively happy ending.
Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
This alternate history novel imagines that the Black Death killed 99 percent of Europe’s population (instead of the third it actually did) and follows the ramification over centuries. Huge in scope and length, it’s the perfect book to make you look forward to another lockdown weekend stuck at home.
World War Z by Max Brooks
Zombies as an allegory for the Sars virus? Yes, please. High on action and smarter than your average “need brains” storyline, World World Z gets your mind thinking and your heart pounding with its mix of real-world science, military strategy and relatable characters. And if you’re going to say, “But I already saw the movie,” read it anyway. The novel is a whole different animal.