Lawrence Wright has written for many years for the New Yorker and is the author of the bestselling The Looming Tower, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
A devastating analysis ... Wright is a master of knitting together
complex narratives ... A story about hubris and division,
complacency and insularity, but most of all precariousness.
*The Observer*
In his characteristically rigorous and engrossing style, Wright
documents innumerable episodes of ineptitude and malfeasance ...
Maddening and sobering - as comprehensive an account of the first
year of the pandemic as we've yet seen.
*Kirkus*
Wright explains political mistakes and scientific breakthroughs,
but The Plague Year has a more intimate register, too, in its
record of how the virus upended everyday lives. The most
heartbreaking moments are those that juxtapose ordinary people
falling ill with the incompetence, negligence or politicking of the
Trump White House ... The Plague Year suggests it was even worse
than we remembered or realised at the time.
*New Statesman*
A virtuoso feat ... [Wright has] given us a book of panoramic
breadth, [ranging] from science to politics to economics to culture
with a commanding scrutiny, managing to surprise us about even
those episodes we have only recently lived through and thought we
knew well. The story he tells is immediate and often piercingly
intimate ... Wright's storytelling dexterity makes all this come
alive.
*New York Times Book Review*
In his characteristic style, Mr Wright provides many small sketches
of people touched by Covid-19 - from whizzy scientists like Barney
Graham to victims like 96-year-old Jim Miller, a D-Day veteran who
died of the disease in a cruelly mismanaged home for old soldiers.
But the book's main character is Mr Trump, and its main service is
in weighing his responsibility for the disaster.
*The Economist*
Arresting, lean-limbed, immersive ... Rich with peerless reportage
and incisive critique ... Translates the complexities of
epidemiology into plain English ... Wright is at his commanding
best.
*Minneapolis Star Tribune*
Insightful ... Indispensable as a coronavirus compendium. Very
little escapes Wright's notice, and he is adept at placing the
ongoing story in an enlightening context.
*Austin Chronicle*
Taut, thriller-like, The Plague Year captures the chaos and courage
of this unprecedented era that's forever changed us.
*Oprah Daily*
By far the best book yet on COVID-19 ... [An] exemplary chronicle
[with] countless examples of hope, sacrifice, and heroic feats.
Wright's interviews with experts in virology, economics, public
health, history, politics, and medicine are enlightening ... Wright
is at his finest here in frontline research, expert analysis, and
lucid writing.
*Booklist*
[An] incredibly-crafted telling ... [Wright] is an earnest prober,
with sober-minded curiosity ... [He] provides a well-wrought map
covering the institutions and politicians that failed America
during this stretch of the pandemic [and] crucially highlights
those that also saved us - the first responders and the
reasonable.
*The Boston Globe*
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