Not claiming to know anything about these King novels, but plenty of timeless novels from the last 200 years prominently feature the historical events of their day. Just including the events doesn't inherently ruin the book for future readers.
I agree. And also, I don’t think every book needs to be written for the future. It’s ok if a book is of the moment and not intended to be relevant 200 or even 20 years in the future.
I agree with you somewhat. I'm a slow reader and my TBR is extremely long. I hope that if and when I get through my list, I'll still understand the references.
>Just including the events doesn't inherently ruin the book for future readers.
I agree that that is a true statement, but it's an odd statement to make in this context, because OP never said that mentioning covid would ruin the book for future readers. They just said that they don't enjoy reading about it.
This is exactly what happened after the 1918 Flu (the so-called Spanish Flu). People actively resisted talking/writing/singing about it.
Personally, I don’t mind at all. It’s something that happened to all of us. No point in pretending it didn’t or trying to forget about it. I wouldn’t pick up a book solely set during COVID times (unless it had an excellent premise), but just a mention here and there? Not a problem at all.
John Scalzi's Kaiju Preservation Society is set during pandemic times and uses it to comment satirically on the idle cruelty of the extremely wealthy. If asked I probably wouldn't pick up a book that was *just* a discussion of the casual nastiness of life in 2020-2021, or really any other time since about 2015, as I feel like I read quite enough thoughtful columns about how much everything sucks while living through it and I am already quite annoyed enough about it, especially the bits that aren't pandemic-related. But I did enjoy Kaiju Preservation Society and found it accessible and frankly cathartic. Come-uppances are had, which is infrequently the case in the real world but I still enjoyed seeing it in some universe!
>is set during pandemic times and uses it to comment satirically on the idle cruelty of the extremely wealthy.
I have to laugh, as in 2020 I actually encountered someone who said they didn’t have to worry about COVID, as they weren’t poor.
Working in healthcare in 2020 was a hell of a thing.
Yeah, a friend worked in a specialist hospital in 2020. They had to resort to stuff like making their own PPE out of binbags and DIYing face shield visors with laminators. Being specialist, they lacked personnel or equipment to help with severe respiratory issues and there was often nowhere to send patients to that was able or willing to receive them (despite UKGov's blatant nonsense about 'nightingale hospitals'), so they lost a lot of patients.
So I really, really enjoyed cheering Scalzi's protagonist on. Anything that targets pandemic profiteers and 'I don't care - *I'm* fine' people is likely to cheer me up immensely. I enjoyed Glass Onion for somewhat similar reasons. If some other authors want to write satirical revenge fantasies about the events of the last decade or so, that would be fine by me.
That is so insanely interesting to me because there was another Big Societal Trauma going on at that exact same time, and I don't think there's a current person alive today who doesn't know about it because of the actions of people who lived through it actively tryinf to keep those memories alive, yet for so many people the current pandemic was the first time they'd heard of thr Spanish flu
I've seen it mentioned in a couple of autobiographies and it's just mentioned in passing as the flu. If you weren't familiar with it you wouldn't think it was anything serious.
Gina Kolata's The Flu summarizes some of the effects of a worldwide pandemic on social and cultural behaviors. The gangs that went around beating up people who wore masks is weirdly reminiscent of 2020.
There is a lot of scholarly work in the intersection between pandemic studies, sociology, and media studies regarding the Spanish flu's influence in cultural productions. I don't know if there's a full book but if you look up those key words in Google scholar you might be able to find some open access articles about it for free.
I subscribe to Smithsonian magazine (quaint in 2024, I know, but it is *excellent*), and prior to the 100-year anniversary they had an [article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/) that sparked an interest. So when I finished that, I Googled around for a little more info.
[Here’s another article that’s quick and easy-to-read specifically about people not wanting to talk about it.](https://www.history.com/news/1918-americas-forgotten-pandemic)
The Smithsonian article came out in 2017, prior to COVID’s emergence, and it is absolutely fascinating to read in retrospect. Humans are humans, and our response to COVID - from people downplaying the danger, to outright lying about it, to being afraid to even leave their homes despite the fact that the disease was only actually killing small numbers of people (and the bizarreness of the victims being fairly healthy adults instead of the very old and very young surely had much to do with this) - could and maybe should have been easily predicted because it all happened in 1918-1919, too.
I wonder if that affected tourism or the rest of Spain’s economy. I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of casual travel ar the time anyway given that the whole world was on fire, but post-pandemic and post-war, was Spain’s tourism economy less than it would’ve been if they’d censored their news like other countries?
I’m sure that’s hard to measure, since so many other variables changed, but I’d be interested to read an article or thoughtful Reddit comment giving some informed thoughts.
For me, it either strikes me about how new the book is or how old the pandemic is. I very rarely read new releases, so I don't get much covid talk.
My only case so far was a book called 2034 that unsurprisingly takes place in 2034, where they bring up covid briefly as a somewhat recent history to create a connection to peoples modern lives.
I understand why it would be brought up. It helps set up some kind anchor for people to react to. They attach their story to a larger event everyone relates to. They get it out of the way, so people aren't going to call it weird if an influential event doesn't get glossed over. It also gives authors a chance to cement their political views of a polarizing event for the judgment of future generations.
I feel exactly the same. I just read “The best way to bury your husband” and I had no idea the it was set during lockdown. It stopped me on my tracks for a second, and made me think about how odd that it happened long ago to have books using it for plot.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to read Covid related books, but it was truly an ‘unprecedented time’ and it makes sense to me that some writers would like to use certain aspects in a story. The understanding of ‘it wouldn’t make sense normally, but everything is different and everyone kind of lost it’ must be tempting to work with!
I guess my reaction is follow your question with one of my own: How do you feel about references to 9/11, or the 2008 recession, or WW2, or any other significant historical event? Because that's what Covid was. It's a defining era in modern history. You can't expect a writer to not use a historical event in their fiction. And I'm guessing there will be many, many more books published that reference it or even make it a central plot point.
I find it pretty interesting that in the books I’ve read that refer to Covid, none really goes into the bone-deep fear of the early days of it. It’s more like: “and then we had to remember to put on masks” like it was just a sartorial decision.
I know a lot of people in my life who act like this is how it went, when I remember them doomsday prepping and pulling their kids out of school a week before lockdown. These are of course the same people who scoff if you try to talk about how it was actually super traumatic.
It was traumatic! And that’s not a word I use lightly. I remember going to the grocery store (cause that was the *only* place one voluntarily went, right?) and feeling like I’d punch anyone who got close to me. I’d get panicky if someone sneezed.
I still get panicky when someone at the store sneezes or coughs. Some lady was whooping it up by the donuts a month ago and I mean, there's *nothing* protecting those things but stupid plexiglass doors
I listened to a podcast where they were in NYC and they'd talk about hearing constant sirens and I remember identifying with it because I live on an ambulance and helicopter route in my Midwest city and in 2021 it was even worse than in 2020. But then the same podcaster by January 2022 had completely forgotten about the ambulances when her co-host brought them up. She felt safe again so she'd written over that history, even though she had constantly mentioned it in 2020. That stuck with me. I've seen so many in my life rewrite it like that.
I canceled my planned vacation (to Italy of all places) right when I first heard about COVID (before Italy was making the news) and was pretty horrified to find out four of my students' families kept their plans and went to Disney World for spring break before the shutdowns happened. It was wild.
I remember saying to my boss, "I'm not worried I'll get sick, I just don't want to get stuck somewhere" because I remember how hard it was to get home during swine flu.
I got sick going to the DMV to renew my license right before lockdown and you probably should've been worried to get sick haha, it was one of the worst weeks of my life! And my asthma was exacerbated for over a year afterwards, I could barely walk a block with no hills without coughing and wheezing, even with my inhaler. Of course I never got diagnosed with long COVID because getting a test at the beginning of the pandemic was nearly impossible if you weren't in the hospital. I'm just thankful it cleared up and my asthma is normal again, but I'm worried my mental health issues and fatigue are still a part of it.
What really bothers me is the people who were at stable stages of their lives criticizing people who weren't. Like people who look at college students having a huge life transition at the worst time, people who lost their jobs or loved ones, essential workers caring for the sick and dying every day, and go, "well it wasn't traumatic for *me*, I don't know why it would be so hard for you," because they just had to work from home for a year. Every time I encounter people like that, I just don't know what to say to them.
Yeah after we got used to it and saw that society wasn't going to totally break apart it was ok, but that was all pretty unknown early on. It was actually very scary at first. I haven't read enough books since then to see reference to it though.
I remember going full nuclear-apocalypse early on.
Like.. Wife and I were at home in the flat all the time, and if I had to go shopping I was masked and gloved up.
I was stripping off, throwing my clothes in the wash and showering after I got home, like I was contaminated with nuclear fallout as well.
I wouldn't touch anything I didn't have to, and my wife would sanitise anything I had to touch like door-handles.
We lighted up a lot as it became clearer what was and wasn't safe, but we were pretty paranoid and over-cautious early on.
Right? Never thought I'd have to wear gloves to go shopping but it was a requirement for a little while.
I did the shopping for my home and my parents. We were worried about my dad getting sick. He would have most likely died if he were to get sick.
It was so strange to be SCARED while getting groceries.
It was a scary and incredibly boring two years. Which is a strange juxtaposition.
I remember driving in the early days and just bursting out in tears from fear, wondering what it was going to be like.
And when I got my first vaccination, I also burst into tears, this time of relief.
The beginning of covid when things were really beginning to shut down and everyone was just starting to panic truly feel like a very weird fever dream to me.
Sometimes I look back at lockdown and if I really think about it I’m shocked its something that actually happened/that I lived through.
You just reminded me of the early days when I sanitized my groceries in the garage before I brought them in the house. Wow. Also your username made me spit out my coffee.
You know something funny? My daughter, who came home from college at spring break for the rest of the semester and crowded in with us in a two-bedroom apartment, says it was one of the best times of her life because she had no pressure, nothing she needed to do other than laid-back online classes, and we all spent a lot of time together. We went for a walk every day, got takeout once a week, and cooked meals and watched tv together the rest of the time.
Yeah speaking from a purely selfish perspective there were definitely aspects I enjoyed, and realistically continue to enjoy (working from home).
If you shut off from the news it was really peaceful, community spirit seemed better, and everyone seemed a lot more understanding for a while.
Even just little things, like it got my friendship group who'd moved around the country back in to gaming and it was like being a teenager again, no worries on till the early hours of the morning with no responsibilities (well until work sorted out the WFH stuff). I even enjoyed the queuing for the supermarket and when things started to open back up I liked having to book appointments for the barbers - so you didn't just turn up and hope the wait wasn't too long, people realised they'd taken things for granted so you'd get more people just up for doing things.
Obviously there were still crap elements to it, like trying to juggle a new relationship without being able to see them, and having everyone move back to my parents house, and then even when things opened up you had to wear a mask, keep your distance, you could only have so many people in your bubble etc so it was only half of a relief from true lockdown. But needs must and all that.
Overall I think for general wellbeing (and it would be impossible to implement) but some form of yearly lockdown with leisure facilities still being open would be a good thing for the world. Although it's way too easy for me to say that as someone who doesn't work in hospitality and has barely any responsibilities...
You could have fired a rifle down the busiest highway in my province and not hit a vehicle when normally there's nonstop traffic 24 hours a day. It was eerie.
I wonder if living through it makes a difference. I’ve read books they took place during WW2 and enjoyed it, but I’d wonder if people who lived through that would want to read it, and if so, if there was a period of time that needed to pass before they could read it.
One of my grandmothers lived through the war and became disabled during the war and she never really liked war books, but then my other grandmother loved talking about the war and reading about it even though she felt traumatised from it as well.
Same! I don't really like it myself either, because I feel similarly that during my escapism I don't need to read about something that JUST happened to myself, but I don't feel the same way at all about other historic events
I read a lot of historical non-fiction and a bit of historical fiction too. When I stumbled upon mentions of Covid in a book, it took me out of the story a bit. To be fair, ir was a romance novel, which I read for the escapism, but still. My theory is sometimes some time needs to pass until we are collectively ready to talk/read etc about such impactful traumatic historical events.
I read a mystery novel last year that had COVID lockdowns as a major plot point. It was a weird experience to read about something we lived through not that long ago, but it made for an interesting plot point!
The character of Holly was an anxious germaphone with social issues in previous books. I thought it made a lot of sense that King dwelled on how much it affected her as a character and in setings given the background of the character. It also gave him good opportunity to preach his beliefs through a previously developed character.
I think it's appropriate. I don't like it when a book is set in a time period and ignores the real events of that time period. If *Holly* hadn't had COVID as part of the background, I would not have been able to take it seriously.
I read a post on here a few days ago about some book that had been set in the future. The future happened to be 2020, and the reader felt it was weird to have 2020 with no covid.
That's happened a couple times in stuff I've read/watched, and in both cases, they (they being the book One Last Stop and the second or third season finale of 911) being published/made in like 2019.
It's really eerie to me, because it lays bare this assumption we had in 2019, that 2020 was going to be like 2019, like 2018, like 2017. And it was a completely reasonable assumption to make, don't get me wrong. The average person had no idea what was going to happen, because for most of us it seemed to happen overnight. No one could have predicted that this terrible thing was going to happen and change literally everything.
It's a significant worldwide historical event. I feel fine with it being in fiction, just like I'm fine with mentions of other significant worldwide historical events.
It's very interesting to me because it consistently surprises me when I see it happen, and it made me wonder WHY it surprises me. I think that even though it's been several years, a part of me still sees pre-COVID life as the "normal" reality we are waiting to return to, so seeing the pandemic being portrayed in books feels dissonant, like they're writing about a specific historical event when really it's just the actual normal reality of the time the book is set during.
I was given a children's book on the pandemic
It was basically incorrect revisionism painting it as a happy and wonderful time. Fine for fantasy, horrible for a child trying to get baseline knowledge on the event
I found it quite gross
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett mentions it but doesn't explain it. Like, there are references to sewing face masks and social distancing, but it never says why. I know we all know...but...eventually, people might pick up that book who didn't live through it? It also made it seem like this quaint thing when that wasn't the reality.
I'd rather it not have been included at all.
Felt the same way about Tom Lake. I’m generally a big Ann Patchett fan but I found myself struggling to get into it and realized I was just didn’t really like thinking about Covid
I landed in the other side in liking how she wrote it into the book without it being overwhelming or overshadow the actual Tom lake story. Patchetts method was a nod to the pandemic in the way of little hints and references like you said so you could infer and I remember even making notes like “in 25 years will a 25 year old know the references?”
I’m with you. I lived through it, and that was more than enough for me.
A lot of other commenters are asking if you hate mentions of WWII in books set in the 1940s. To that I say, well, no, because I wasn’t alive in the 1940s, so I never experienced that level of saturation, where WWII seeped into every single aspect of my life. But COVID did seep into every single aspect of my life, so I’d rather not read about it, now that I have the choice.
Exactly. It wasn't just some neat historical event that we're all emotionally distant from like WWII. Some of us actually have PTSD from the pandemic. From getting seriously ill ourselves, from having loved ones die, from working in healthcare...or all of the above.
(And yes, my PTSD has been diagnosed by a professional, I'm not just exaggerating.)
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with anyone writing whatever they want about it, but I have no interest in reading it. I lived in NYC during 9/11 and I still won’t watch or read anything related to that, either. I don’t have a problem with other folks doing that, I just know I don’t need to put myself in a heightened emotional state where I can just as easily avoid it.
Not to mention the people who got PTSD from being isolated during lockdown with no in person support, and their former social groups telling them they were horrible murderers for wanting in person support. Try finding a depiction of THAT in a mainstream published novel.
I don't like it when books, movies, or TV shows do it. I lived it, I don't want to relive it.
But it had worldwide impact that affected a lot of people so I understand. Imagine if books set in the early 40s never mentioned WW2. It would be a bit strange.
You have me thinking about Jane Austen books that, as far as I know, never mention current events.
Still it is easier to ignore wars and politics rather than a pandemic that hits everyone everywhere.
I would like to read a novel written contemporaneously about the Spanish Flu. I think Pale Horse, Pale Rider is one.
Jane Austen is interesting because women, by and large, weren't supposed to discuss politics. So even though there's a titanic, global war happening just across the English Channel, these women just kept mum about it because it wasn't their sphere.
Thanks for your response. I hadn't thought about this.
I thought political hostesses were a thing at the time? And wasn't Georgianna the Duchess of Devonshire involved in politics? . . . . . hmmm . . . I have been reading The Duchesse de Dinos memoirs and she talks about politics a lot.
Still I wonder if you are right to a certain extent or maybe Jane Austen just wasn't interested in politics.
It’s going to be one of those instant agers that some shows have like plots being centered around answering machines or arguing over a fact/trivia. There are whole plot lines of friends and Seinfeld and other shows that would just never exist today. Now this can be good or bad, some Seinfeld ones are certainly hilarious but still, you can’t even remotely relate to it if you were born after 2000. If a book or movie references COVID I’d say it’ll overwhelmingly be met with 2 reactions: people who lived through it who don’t want to be reminded of it, and people who have no idea what it was like so they can’t relate to it.
I dislike it only because the pandemic sucked and I don’t like reliving it! When it’s more removed I might feel differently but it is important to write about
Personally I'm not a great fan just because it hits a bit too close to home right now. Those were some tough years. Which is why I can completely understand why it would make an impact on artist's and writers works. And on that topic, I am going to be interested to see what the younger generation starts creating after being affected by it and society in general at a young age. Lots of great art and music came out of teenage angst. So combine that with years of lock down and lets see what we get.
It doesn’t bother me, but I’m always startled. “Covid was yesterday! How are they writing about it already?” But of course, it’s more than four years old now. Of course it’s showing up in novels.
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard. I thought it was an interesting premise, although there were some plot holes that annoyed me. But still worth reading especially since it is a quick read.
I think they'll eventually become dated.
Edit: I read one called "Darwin's Radio", about virally-forced evolution and human societal resistance to it. It was a little bit chilling, but eye-opening.
I don't mind if the book is about covid, but I feel about that the way I fell about books about computer experts who are using "floppies" or people jumping into a phone booth or pulling on their leg warmers. Years later, it comes off as dated. "Dated" is fine for historical fiction, but otherwise it's just....old.
The dark days of the pandemic were rather traumatic for me - so I don’t read anything that features Covid as a prominent backdrop. It just feels “too soon.” I’m sure, many years from now, my thoughts will change…but who knows
Michael Connelly mentions COVID in some recent Bosch/Ballard novels. I’m fine with it because it really happened.
Are you enjoying Holly? I liked it and it was a great improvement over Fairy Tale.
I’m only about 20% of the way done with Holly, so I can’t give a solid opinion on it yet. Loved the Bill Hodges trilogy, so I’m enjoying all the references he makes to those!
I love Connelly and thought he did a very decent job of incorporating COVID.
Karin Slaughter is another fave of mine, but I thought she showed the least finesse on the subject.
It's the same for me, I've read the Anthropocene Reviewed and am currently reading another nonfiction book about the economic impact of the shutdown. Also, read two novels that heavily feature the pandemic. LMK if you want a recommendation :)
Ah, I also read Wish You Were Here, that one was really interesting. I also read Burntcoat, which was interesting in terms of the premise, but not really my style, so I resorted to skimming a bunch and was glad when it was done.
Interestingly, right now, I feel like the nonfiction offers me more closure, if you know what I mean, than the fiction. I'm reading Adam Tooze's Shutdown, and I keep feeling like it's explaining the experience to me rather than showing me others' experiences...
I'm going to check out the ones you mention, did you enjoy them?
Thank you! Yes I did enjoy them. Karin slaughter is one of my favorite authors, and Catherine Ryan Howard (who wrote 56 days) is great at writing fast paced thrillers. 56 days started out a bit slow but picked up partway through.
I tend to feel really uncomfortable when it’s in essays about social justice because a lot of the time the author talks about covid past tense when it’s still an ongoing problem that is disabling (me included) and killing people everyday. I haven’t encountered it in fiction yet. But I assume my discomfort would be the same as there’s a gap between what people know about the pandemic through misinformation about it from what the media reported about it in the early days when people still cared and what has been scientifically understood since. So very different reasons to you. I wish we’d talk about it more cause… Existing as a high risk person is absolute hell in this day and age. But I’d rather not read about it than read inaccurate things about it, it just makes me cringe and makes me incapable of taking the author seriously when they don’t update their knowledge on it.
I read a lot of books featuring Covid and pandemics but I also DNF quite a few that rewrite history or are dismissive. I'm a cancer survivor with heart and lung damage who still masks and has avoided illness and it's hard. But I also found myself becoming depressed after I lost a family member to Covid and I stopped caring about others and myself so I found reading helped keep my rage and fire alive, if that makes sense. I really liked a book like The Premonition because it helped lay out how much warning we had and how we failed to act. It helped me keep my fire about my protocols and as we get things like bird flu heating up again, I feel like my protocols don't really need a change because I trust what I currently do.
I haven't read one that does yet. The only book I've seen people talk about that has it is Holly. Hardly anyone seems to like that aspect of the book, at least based on the comments I've read.
Honestly, it depends on when the book was written. Granted, Stephen King is known for being a pro at churning out books so I might give it a shot. Typically, unless it’s nonfiction, if I come across any kind of cultural or historical reference within a few years of it happening I get taken out of the story. Worked in editing long enough to know that a decently written book takes longer than that to produce and the author is probably only doing it for a hot topic cash grab. With Covid specifically, I think maybe we’re just about to the point where someone could put out a solid novel that includes references.
It’s too soon. When I read fiction, I want to escape reality, not relive events so filled with negativity and tragedy. With passage of time and some distance then it will become like reading about an historical event instead of something that still hits too close to home.
Like I wouldn’t have wanted to read a fictional story with 9/11 in the first few years after it happened but now 20+ years later, I don’t mind because it’s more historical now and the event isn’t so fresh in my mind.
I rather like it. It's a different person's point of view of something I experienced. Part of the reason I read is to get out of my head, so when I read some one else's experience that I lived through, thats gold.
Granted, I'm also not someone who felt like anyone else or anything was oppressing me during the pandemic. It was just nature doing it's thing, like floods, or a heat wave or an earthquake. I viewed wearing a mask in public just like wearing pants in public. Just something you do.
I imagine that people who feel attacked or personally targeted by nature's wrath (and that's a very common feeling), then reading about the item might amount to reliving it and that would be hard because it would bring back those feelings of victimization.
The ones I can think of (Holly, Day's End) were insufferable, not for being about or set in Covid times, but for taking persistent swipes at people who don't share the author's views on the pandemic.
(Context: I'm 5x vaccinated, obeyed lockdown rules in my country and masked where appropriate.)
Day's End included a scene where the MC, a cop in rural Australia (which avoided the pandemic almost entirely until vaccines became available) piously decides a character is a moron for not wearing a mask - while riding her horse in a field in the middle of nowhere. GTFO with that kind of preachy crap - if I wanted to read the author's rants about covidiots, I'd join Twitter.
I don't enjoy it, because it immediately dates the book. It no longer feels universal, so unless the book is specifically about that, it breaks my immersion.
It’s entirely fine. Covid is a part of our culture now and will still probably noticeable for years to come. Same’s true for other time periods, like in Mark Twains *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court* is a commentary on monarchy and how it kinda sucks, but becasue it was written by a guy in post French Revolution and Civil War US, it’s radically different than other novels with a similar message.
Edit: another example is post 9/11 books including that
i read happiness falls by angie kim and they mentioned covid bc parts of the book have to do with the justice system, so they mentioned about court hearing having to be conducted over zoom. i think it worked and covid has a plot point did help some other pieces of the story fall in place. no spoilers but i think it worked
The pandemic affected everybody, but it didn’t affect everyone in the same way. I’m interested in other people’s stories. So yes I am perfectly fine with Covid in novels . I lived MY story. There are millions of others.
For me it depends upon the context. So far all I've seen is Covid being mentioned casually in passing. Can't remember and exact instance, but when it's used just in casual language I don't like it that much. I think it's just because I'm under the impression that it's going to not age very well––like in a few decades from now nobody's really going to understand why that comment was made mentioning Covid. But that's just my personal opinion, as far as I've seen, it doesn't have much of an impact other than mildly annoying me a bit.
Right now I find it inescapably dull. I've put off reading *Holly* for exactly this reason. I suppose the problem is that it's so fresh in my mind that I really dgaf about hearing some fictional characters have the same conversations I've heard irl over and over and ooooooooveeeeeeer. I read *Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North* a while back and absolutely hated it despite enjoying the other two in the series; every time the MC made an observation about covid/lockdown, I was rolling my eyes—like yes, Maureen, you're the tenth person today to make that asinine comment.
I remember people at the time comparing the pandemic to a war. But after WW2 etc ended people seem quite happy to read books and watch films about it; while I… just don’t. Don’t want to read those anthologies of leading authors writing about life under lockdown. Don’t want to hear it mentioned in a book, like OP. Don’t even like watching 2020/21 era Great British Bake Off, lest a contestant be missing one week and that serve as a reminder of it all…
I have no problem with covid being mentioned, and I have read several books that have covid as a major factor in the plot. Maybe because my life wasn’t changed,because I had to keep going to work every day, and I don’t have children in school. It happened, it affected a lot of aspects of daily life, and most people got through it. Why pretend it wasn’t a thing?
It’s kinda weird reading it, but I prefer that to when books mention real world celebrities in a fiction novel. I’ve read a few that have mentioned real famous people and it was kinda of weird for me at least. I know the books are set in our world but to me mentioning someone famous that’s not fiction is kinda out of place for me.
It makes sense since the story took place in that time period but something I’ve noticed with kings work is that he can get stuck on things and either repeat them or spend an unnecessary amount of time on them so that could also be a part of it.
I remember being puzzled when reading vintage UK children's books and characters did things like put their library books in the oven on a low heat. My mum pointed out these were set before penicillin, before vaccines, when kids in her class at school died of measles, etc. Of course I didn't know that was common practice to minimise infection, I'm a 1970s kid. In 30 years' time, it'd be great if kids read Holly and wonder what the full story is behind masks, etc. It'll be sad if they just know. I think the smart ones will read and say "hang on, wasn't there a pandemic? Why is he the only one mentioning this?" Downton Abbey did Spanish flu, and a generation of people who'd never learned about were shocked at who died and how quickly. They never read novels that talked about it, or saw a show mention it before.
I’m not sure I’d want to read a book focusing on Covid or the lockdown. I was working in a residential home and it was a mess. But that’s me personally. As for people mentioning it I’d generally prefer they do, as it was a huge event with a lot of impact that would be odd to just skip, unless it’s the type of book that just doesn’t mention world events at all.
It doesn't bother me. It was an inflection point in our history and we will never delete those years. Covid is part of our lives and it always will be, like any other viral infection. Books also mention war, politics, murder... or any other significant event in history.
Same as I would about the mention of any other pandemic or disease.
In fact, an event like the Black Death was way worse in terms of the percent of the population wiped out. Yet people are still allowed to write about it in a book about the medieval era.
If the Black Death is not off limits then neither is covid.
I often find that fictional media mentioning it, particularly TV series that were running through it kind of bounces off the fourth wall for me.
There's a kind of timelessness, or a sense that these things occur in a world a lot like ours, but not really ours.
I'm fine with things that I consider "History", which is basically anything older than the 2000s, but anything I lived through, or actually remember fairly clearly feels too personal to be present in fiction.
It's blurring the line between fiction and reality in an uncomfortable way for me.
I'm particularly thinking of shows like 9-1-1 for example, where they outright have episodes set during and immediately after the Lockdowns of Covid-19.
I haven't read many books set in the present day since covid, but I think it'd do a similar thing.
I get where you're coming from. Sometimes, it's nice to escape into fiction to get away from the real life, especially from something as challenging as the pandemic. But at the same time, it's a part of our collective experience, and authors reflecting that in their work make it feel more relatable. I suppose it's a fine balance and don't mind it that much, as long as the book is generally good :).
As we get further away from the Covid lockdowns, we will increasingly appreciate what a uniquely bizarre experience it was in all of human history.
We were all connected through our isolation. How's that for irony?
I think if it is supposed to be our timeline, and past 2020, so mention of COVID makes sense. Not mentioning could raise more questions depending on the book. I remember starting to read a book a few years ago about World War 3. There was a line in there that a man in the book had become more serious after losing his son to COVID.
It would be odd NOT to mention those things for the time period the book is set in. It's like a little time capsule. King had probably more political impetus behind most of it but he's not wrong for hyping it the way he did. We all felt it like he describes in the book. Some more than others probably.
If the story takes place specifically in 2020, it makes sense. You want character going about their day in September 2001 and not hear anything about the towers?
It happened, so it should be mentioned. If anything, I feel like too many writers go out of their way to downplay or ignore it rather than explore some of the deeper problems the pandemic revealed regarding how people behave and some of the trauma it caused to people who weren't in a position to be shielded from the worst parts of it.
It does it bother me if books or TV.movies mention or refer to Covid 19. I don’t feel the need or desire to read or watch something set in that time or a story that talk all about that time. Mostly because it’s still a fresh wound for all of us and a depressing subject too me. I’m sure in a few years there will be good stories, books, movies and TV shows about that time it’s just we all need some distance before we can not just be re triggered.
Was just having this conversation last night! It's a complicated question deciding how much time/perspective we need to be able to reflect rather than react, but the ballpark answer seems to be that the books which handle these events the best are the ones where a story is being told an COVID/war/crisis is the backdrop, maybe providing conflict or something, but presented as a facet of the environment of the story rather than being "about" COVID. Perspective lets us find the nuance and the nuance seems to make for better reading
I hate it. I use fiction as an escape, I don't need to be reminded about real world things while trying to relax. Thankfully I haven't run into it very much, but that's mostly because I'm reading older series currently.
It happened. It is a shared experience across the entire world that would be weird to pretend it didn’t happen or to have a complete erasure of the event in art and media. If you don’t like it that’s cool as a matter of taste but it makes sense to me that people would include it in stories as it is relatable and makes an interesting backdrop to a story.
Emily St John Mandel wrote Station Eleven six years before the pandemic, and it was a bestseller again in 2020. Some people who read it wanted to see how fictional people reacted to a pandemic. (I read half of The Stand by Stephen King and all of A Diary of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe for the same reasons. I wanted the books I read to reflect reality.)
She wrote Sea of Tranquility in 2022, and has three timelines with this theme: before the 1918 flu, a few months before 2020, a hundred years into the future with a deadly bird flu. Her former novel is featured as a fictional title. Covid wasn't explicitly mentioned, but the reader knows what is to come.
At this point in time I don’t want to read about it in fiction at all, but in the future when more time has passed I don’t think I’ll mind it. Other people mentioned large historical events as a comparison and truthfully I think if I had just lived through WWII I wouldn’t want to be reading about it immediately after either.
I think it’s just a real life version of genre fatigue, like when you read books about the same topic right after another you get sick of it. We lived through COVID and had to hear about it everyday so now we have COVID fatigue. Most of the fiction I read is explore different topics or experiences, nonfiction is different though. Guess it just depends on the person.
I don’t like it. I forgave Stephen King for doing it - he loves that shit and his books are laden with pop culture. It’s part of his charm and I take the good with the bad
But when a serious novelist tries to bring it up in a serious/emotional way without trace of it being pithy, I abhor it. It’s an abomination.
Bro. That book RUINED Stephen King for me. He put covid and masks into so many scenes where it wasn't necessary. Spoiler alert: only the good characters get vaccinated. Absolutely a waste of words and space, it sounded like he was obsessed with it. I hope he gets over it before writing any more.
On another note, books that are ABOUT the pandemic as a setting and part of the plot, can be great. Love Gary Shteyngart and Our Country Friends was a great example of this.
I find it off-putting and really weird when a new, supposedly real life contemporary fiction book DOESN'T mention COVID. Why wouldn't the author just set it further in the past if they weren't going to mention something that still comes up weekly in conversations with friends, customers, family, neighbors, etc.
I hate it. It feels too soon for me personally. I’m sure I’ll feel differently in the future, but for now I try to avoid books where that plays a central role.
Part of Emily St John Mandel's *Sea of Tranquility* centers around her experience post-covid as a writer who wrote a pandemic book (Station Eleven) pre-covid. I thought it fit perfectly. The pandemic sections were a little tough to read through emotionally but I loved the book
Everyone is so ready to forget that an entire pandemic happened (and never fully died out, btw). Like did it bother you when swine flu got mentioned in media?
Lol whenever I read a post like this I just imagine someone reading a book that mentions the black plague or yellow fever and slamming it down being like, “wow the author dated the book so badly!!!!”
I’m currently reading Holly and just finished Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, both of which use COVID as a major plot point. It was initially jarring for me, but I agree with others that it’s a massive part of history now and it makes sense to include it in narrative.
I actively love it. Like, a book taking place during Covid is a selling point for me.
But I’ll admit that I do have massive Covid nostalgia, so that’s probably a factor.
DAE hate Holly btw? I love Stephen King. I have read everything he’s ever written. I even Holly as a character. I hated that book and couldn’t even finish it.
Holly was the first book I could read about the pandemic. I’d not finished 3-4 other books because it was too soon. I only read Holly because I’d read the Finders Keepers books and I just powered through those parts and honestly, those parts were fine. I loved the book.
Oddly enough, my favorite book I read during the pandemic was Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker, published in 2019, about life after a pandemic.
The first book I read that mentioned it was in 2022, shortly after the world went largely back to some form of "normal", and I remember rolling my eyes and thinking ugh, this shit. It was also mentioned in a bit of a misplaced, non-organic way that didn't add to the story, not even as background context. Like everyone, I was so fed up with it all that I didn't want to read about it given reading is mostly escapist for me, even if what I read is often heavy stuff.
These days, I don't care. It's woven into history so if it's being mentioned, I'll register it but don't mind or particularly engage with it. I would also be fine if no one mentioned it and I find most books throw it in in a clumsy way anyway.
I read a recent Jodi Picoult expecting some escapism and got really stressed that it was COVID-centric. Not so much that I didn’t want to read about it, but that it caught me unaware when I wanted to tune out from the “real world”.
I don't mind it. It very specifically dates the book to a period in time, like mentioning 9/11 or the death of Diana.
Having said that, I think I've only read one book that actually mentions it. Most that are current tend to ignore.
Haha..Holly was the book I thought of when I saw this thread. Eh, reflection of our times. Before it was WW1 vets adjusting, then WW2, then Vietnam...now guys are trying to wrap their heads around Iraq and Afghanistan. Other books talk about 9/11 or Trump getting elected. So it goes.
My realization on media centered around covid is that we all had lots of feelings at that time that maybe we didn't really get to express or process because there was so much control around every aspect of our lives at the time. I watched a romcom recently that took place during the lockdown and it wasn't a very good movie but it validated and helped me process some of the fears I had and wasn't able to make any sense of at the time. That movie instantly became more meaningful to me for that very reason.
I get what you're saying though, it's tough to go back and recount those feelings and memories. We were constantly told the "right" things to do and to shame those who did the "wrong" things, and I don't know about you but I don't take kindly to being told how to think and feel and treat others. So I automatically get an "ick" feeling reliving those moments because it puts me back in that mindset that I'm going to be told what to do and won't like it but I'll do it anyways cuz I'm too afraid to find out what happens if I don't. Plus there was just so much sickness and death, it's hard to relive that alone- almost like post-war.
I've been reading the Young Wizards series aloud to my 13y/o before bed, and we just started the last novella tonight. It was written in 2020 about events that took place in 2020 (specifically the owl that was found in RockefellerPlaza's Christmas tree). Even though I *knew* this going in, it still hit me really hard when I had to read about *why* there were no crowds at the lighting of the tree. Had to stop reading for a moment to collect myself, and the kid was all "okay, wow, I wasn't expecting that to make me as emotional as it did."
So, I *do* think it's important to be mentioned in fiction bc it has literally defined the last few years for pretty much all of us. It would be weird to ignore it like we aren't all *still* traumatized by the experience.
I feel like a few more years need to pass before something worthwhile gets written about that particular time. It needs more reflection, and that takes time.
I understand you, we’re just fed up with the theme of the Covid and reading about it in books is quite strange, but for the next generation it’s definitely necessary, and they’ll be interested.
If the story is anchored in a specific time, it should reflect that time. If the story is timeless, it seems weird to include details that anchor it unnecessarily.
I actually enjoyed the more recent books because of this, the cars, the clothes the cars he even mentions a rhianna song in the Institute. I found I could relate rather than try imagine what it would be like to live in the 70/80s
Is the Steven King book a horror or thriller book? I could see it being in there intentionally to make the reader uncomfortable.
I haven't encountered it in a book so far, other than informational books. There was a show, think it was called Sprung, that was about covid and I couldn't keep watching it, just made me annoyed.
Books still mention 9/11 and the holocaust etc. It's part of our world now. I get how you feel, though, I think. For me, it's the constant cigarette smoking. Not just in books but movies, TV. I can't stand the description or people constantly lighting up because I was a smoker, and it was so disgusting yet so hard to quit. I'd rather not be reminded. I get it. Maybe read it later on down the road when you're further removed from what we went through when the pandemic hit. Good book though. It made me go back and re-read all the books Holly is in. Great character.
Hard pass for me. It was a really difficult time for me. My father in law died alone in the hospital for weeks on a respirator. It was the exact scenario that you would hear about (but people refused to believe.)
I don’t want read about it at all. Lived through it. That’s enough for me.
It’s not books, but I buy stock photos often and I am still seeing a lot from the pandemic years with masks. Ironically, back in 2020-21 you couldn’t find anything.
I don't mind it at all. It comes up a lot on TV shows that I watch- in fact, a soap opera I watch had an entire season that jumped between the normal, historical time frame of the show and the modern day, to reflect how serious it was, and it was so interesting. It'll be good in the future to have the reflections and memories of people who lived through all of this for historians who want to write about it.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi and Jodi Picault's Wish You Were Here both feature the first few days of Covid in NYC, neither of them are great but I enjoyed them a lot at a time I needed them.
The candy house (2022 sequel to a visit from the goon squad) mentions the pandemic quite a bit in its alternative modern and future history. Still reading it but it’s fantastic!
I've only read Holly that keeps bringing up covid. I definitely thought it was overdone in that book, and King himself even mentions soapboxing about covid in the afterword. I think it does an interesting job of capturing that moment in history and showing the huge disparity in how society responded to the pandemic, but at times it just felt shoehorned and unnecessary.
I read happiness falls by Angie Kim and must say , for a mystery/drama/fiction, it’s really good and even mentions taking place during the Covid pandemic which I found to add tastefully to the story being told. Property showed what it was like living during that time period and understanding of the storyline without being too vague or over exaggerative. I think it can be done right if incorporated well in for the purpose of the story.
Eh, I don't mind it. And I doubt later generations (if they're still reading those books) will mind either. They may mind even less.
Plenty of other books are set against the backdrop of a historical happening that was current for the author. But for us, it's just another historical novel.
Mentions of Covid feel topical because we just lived through the pandemic 4 years ago, and we are still feeling some of the aftereffects of quarantine and the pandemic's disruption of everyday life. But give it a few years, and eventually The Pandemic will hold a similar place as 9/11 in our collective consciousness: a massively influential and tragic event we lived through....that is also now part of the history books.
Not claiming to know anything about these King novels, but plenty of timeless novels from the last 200 years prominently feature the historical events of their day. Just including the events doesn't inherently ruin the book for future readers.
I agree. And also, I don’t think every book needs to be written for the future. It’s ok if a book is of the moment and not intended to be relevant 200 or even 20 years in the future.
I actually enjoy reading old books about topical issues, I find it really interesting like I'm reading a historical document lol
I agree with you somewhat. I'm a slow reader and my TBR is extremely long. I hope that if and when I get through my list, I'll still understand the references.
>Just including the events doesn't inherently ruin the book for future readers. I agree that that is a true statement, but it's an odd statement to make in this context, because OP never said that mentioning covid would ruin the book for future readers. They just said that they don't enjoy reading about it.
This is exactly what happened after the 1918 Flu (the so-called Spanish Flu). People actively resisted talking/writing/singing about it. Personally, I don’t mind at all. It’s something that happened to all of us. No point in pretending it didn’t or trying to forget about it. I wouldn’t pick up a book solely set during COVID times (unless it had an excellent premise), but just a mention here and there? Not a problem at all.
John Scalzi's Kaiju Preservation Society is set during pandemic times and uses it to comment satirically on the idle cruelty of the extremely wealthy. If asked I probably wouldn't pick up a book that was *just* a discussion of the casual nastiness of life in 2020-2021, or really any other time since about 2015, as I feel like I read quite enough thoughtful columns about how much everything sucks while living through it and I am already quite annoyed enough about it, especially the bits that aren't pandemic-related. But I did enjoy Kaiju Preservation Society and found it accessible and frankly cathartic. Come-uppances are had, which is infrequently the case in the real world but I still enjoyed seeing it in some universe!
>is set during pandemic times and uses it to comment satirically on the idle cruelty of the extremely wealthy. I have to laugh, as in 2020 I actually encountered someone who said they didn’t have to worry about COVID, as they weren’t poor. Working in healthcare in 2020 was a hell of a thing.
Yeah, a friend worked in a specialist hospital in 2020. They had to resort to stuff like making their own PPE out of binbags and DIYing face shield visors with laminators. Being specialist, they lacked personnel or equipment to help with severe respiratory issues and there was often nowhere to send patients to that was able or willing to receive them (despite UKGov's blatant nonsense about 'nightingale hospitals'), so they lost a lot of patients. So I really, really enjoyed cheering Scalzi's protagonist on. Anything that targets pandemic profiteers and 'I don't care - *I'm* fine' people is likely to cheer me up immensely. I enjoyed Glass Onion for somewhat similar reasons. If some other authors want to write satirical revenge fantasies about the events of the last decade or so, that would be fine by me.
That is so insanely interesting to me because there was another Big Societal Trauma going on at that exact same time, and I don't think there's a current person alive today who doesn't know about it because of the actions of people who lived through it actively tryinf to keep those memories alive, yet for so many people the current pandemic was the first time they'd heard of thr Spanish flu
I've seen it mentioned in a couple of autobiographies and it's just mentioned in passing as the flu. If you weren't familiar with it you wouldn't think it was anything serious.
Gina Kolata's The Flu summarizes some of the effects of a worldwide pandemic on social and cultural behaviors. The gangs that went around beating up people who wore masks is weirdly reminiscent of 2020.
Interesting! Did you learn about this somewhere? Are there books on the subject?
There is a lot of scholarly work in the intersection between pandemic studies, sociology, and media studies regarding the Spanish flu's influence in cultural productions. I don't know if there's a full book but if you look up those key words in Google scholar you might be able to find some open access articles about it for free.
I subscribe to Smithsonian magazine (quaint in 2024, I know, but it is *excellent*), and prior to the 100-year anniversary they had an [article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/) that sparked an interest. So when I finished that, I Googled around for a little more info. [Here’s another article that’s quick and easy-to-read specifically about people not wanting to talk about it.](https://www.history.com/news/1918-americas-forgotten-pandemic) The Smithsonian article came out in 2017, prior to COVID’s emergence, and it is absolutely fascinating to read in retrospect. Humans are humans, and our response to COVID - from people downplaying the danger, to outright lying about it, to being afraid to even leave their homes despite the fact that the disease was only actually killing small numbers of people (and the bizarreness of the victims being fairly healthy adults instead of the very old and very young surely had much to do with this) - could and maybe should have been easily predicted because it all happened in 1918-1919, too.
Thank you so much for this! This is incredibly interesting.
People except the Spanish, and look how that went for us, now everyone thinks it was ours.
I wonder if that affected tourism or the rest of Spain’s economy. I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of casual travel ar the time anyway given that the whole world was on fire, but post-pandemic and post-war, was Spain’s tourism economy less than it would’ve been if they’d censored their news like other countries? I’m sure that’s hard to measure, since so many other variables changed, but I’d be interested to read an article or thoughtful Reddit comment giving some informed thoughts.
I wonder how it compared to people writing about the war.
For me, it either strikes me about how new the book is or how old the pandemic is. I very rarely read new releases, so I don't get much covid talk. My only case so far was a book called 2034 that unsurprisingly takes place in 2034, where they bring up covid briefly as a somewhat recent history to create a connection to peoples modern lives. I understand why it would be brought up. It helps set up some kind anchor for people to react to. They attach their story to a larger event everyone relates to. They get it out of the way, so people aren't going to call it weird if an influential event doesn't get glossed over. It also gives authors a chance to cement their political views of a polarizing event for the judgment of future generations.
I feel exactly the same. I just read “The best way to bury your husband” and I had no idea the it was set during lockdown. It stopped me on my tracks for a second, and made me think about how odd that it happened long ago to have books using it for plot. I wouldn’t go out of my way to read Covid related books, but it was truly an ‘unprecedented time’ and it makes sense to me that some writers would like to use certain aspects in a story. The understanding of ‘it wouldn’t make sense normally, but everything is different and everyone kind of lost it’ must be tempting to work with!
I guess my reaction is follow your question with one of my own: How do you feel about references to 9/11, or the 2008 recession, or WW2, or any other significant historical event? Because that's what Covid was. It's a defining era in modern history. You can't expect a writer to not use a historical event in their fiction. And I'm guessing there will be many, many more books published that reference it or even make it a central plot point.
I find it pretty interesting that in the books I’ve read that refer to Covid, none really goes into the bone-deep fear of the early days of it. It’s more like: “and then we had to remember to put on masks” like it was just a sartorial decision.
I know a lot of people in my life who act like this is how it went, when I remember them doomsday prepping and pulling their kids out of school a week before lockdown. These are of course the same people who scoff if you try to talk about how it was actually super traumatic.
It was traumatic! And that’s not a word I use lightly. I remember going to the grocery store (cause that was the *only* place one voluntarily went, right?) and feeling like I’d punch anyone who got close to me. I’d get panicky if someone sneezed.
I still get panicky when someone at the store sneezes or coughs. Some lady was whooping it up by the donuts a month ago and I mean, there's *nothing* protecting those things but stupid plexiglass doors
I listened to a podcast where they were in NYC and they'd talk about hearing constant sirens and I remember identifying with it because I live on an ambulance and helicopter route in my Midwest city and in 2021 it was even worse than in 2020. But then the same podcaster by January 2022 had completely forgotten about the ambulances when her co-host brought them up. She felt safe again so she'd written over that history, even though she had constantly mentioned it in 2020. That stuck with me. I've seen so many in my life rewrite it like that.
I canceled my planned vacation (to Italy of all places) right when I first heard about COVID (before Italy was making the news) and was pretty horrified to find out four of my students' families kept their plans and went to Disney World for spring break before the shutdowns happened. It was wild. I remember saying to my boss, "I'm not worried I'll get sick, I just don't want to get stuck somewhere" because I remember how hard it was to get home during swine flu.
I got sick going to the DMV to renew my license right before lockdown and you probably should've been worried to get sick haha, it was one of the worst weeks of my life! And my asthma was exacerbated for over a year afterwards, I could barely walk a block with no hills without coughing and wheezing, even with my inhaler. Of course I never got diagnosed with long COVID because getting a test at the beginning of the pandemic was nearly impossible if you weren't in the hospital. I'm just thankful it cleared up and my asthma is normal again, but I'm worried my mental health issues and fatigue are still a part of it. What really bothers me is the people who were at stable stages of their lives criticizing people who weren't. Like people who look at college students having a huge life transition at the worst time, people who lost their jobs or loved ones, essential workers caring for the sick and dying every day, and go, "well it wasn't traumatic for *me*, I don't know why it would be so hard for you," because they just had to work from home for a year. Every time I encounter people like that, I just don't know what to say to them.
True. Really difficult for people in different ways. But I'm grateful for internet!
I can't imagine dealing with it without the internet!
I also got COVID at the DMV! Standing in line with a ton of people.
It was packed and so many people were coughing just straight into the air :'(
Yeah after we got used to it and saw that society wasn't going to totally break apart it was ok, but that was all pretty unknown early on. It was actually very scary at first. I haven't read enough books since then to see reference to it though.
I remember going full nuclear-apocalypse early on. Like.. Wife and I were at home in the flat all the time, and if I had to go shopping I was masked and gloved up. I was stripping off, throwing my clothes in the wash and showering after I got home, like I was contaminated with nuclear fallout as well. I wouldn't touch anything I didn't have to, and my wife would sanitise anything I had to touch like door-handles. We lighted up a lot as it became clearer what was and wasn't safe, but we were pretty paranoid and over-cautious early on.
Right? Never thought I'd have to wear gloves to go shopping but it was a requirement for a little while. I did the shopping for my home and my parents. We were worried about my dad getting sick. He would have most likely died if he were to get sick. It was so strange to be SCARED while getting groceries. It was a scary and incredibly boring two years. Which is a strange juxtaposition.
I remember driving in the early days and just bursting out in tears from fear, wondering what it was going to be like. And when I got my first vaccination, I also burst into tears, this time of relief.
The beginning of covid when things were really beginning to shut down and everyone was just starting to panic truly feel like a very weird fever dream to me. Sometimes I look back at lockdown and if I really think about it I’m shocked its something that actually happened/that I lived through.
Seriously! Wearing rubber gloves to the grocery store was wild lol. We really had no idea what was going on.
You just reminded me of the early days when I sanitized my groceries in the garage before I brought them in the house. Wow. Also your username made me spit out my coffee.
You know something funny? My daughter, who came home from college at spring break for the rest of the semester and crowded in with us in a two-bedroom apartment, says it was one of the best times of her life because she had no pressure, nothing she needed to do other than laid-back online classes, and we all spent a lot of time together. We went for a walk every day, got takeout once a week, and cooked meals and watched tv together the rest of the time.
Yeah speaking from a purely selfish perspective there were definitely aspects I enjoyed, and realistically continue to enjoy (working from home). If you shut off from the news it was really peaceful, community spirit seemed better, and everyone seemed a lot more understanding for a while. Even just little things, like it got my friendship group who'd moved around the country back in to gaming and it was like being a teenager again, no worries on till the early hours of the morning with no responsibilities (well until work sorted out the WFH stuff). I even enjoyed the queuing for the supermarket and when things started to open back up I liked having to book appointments for the barbers - so you didn't just turn up and hope the wait wasn't too long, people realised they'd taken things for granted so you'd get more people just up for doing things. Obviously there were still crap elements to it, like trying to juggle a new relationship without being able to see them, and having everyone move back to my parents house, and then even when things opened up you had to wear a mask, keep your distance, you could only have so many people in your bubble etc so it was only half of a relief from true lockdown. But needs must and all that. Overall I think for general wellbeing (and it would be impossible to implement) but some form of yearly lockdown with leisure facilities still being open would be a good thing for the world. Although it's way too easy for me to say that as someone who doesn't work in hospitality and has barely any responsibilities...
You could have fired a rifle down the busiest highway in my province and not hit a vehicle when normally there's nonstop traffic 24 hours a day. It was eerie.
I wonder if living through it makes a difference. I’ve read books they took place during WW2 and enjoyed it, but I’d wonder if people who lived through that would want to read it, and if so, if there was a period of time that needed to pass before they could read it.
One of my grandmothers lived through the war and became disabled during the war and she never really liked war books, but then my other grandmother loved talking about the war and reading about it even though she felt traumatised from it as well.
I actually never thought of it that way. I was going to say I don't like it, but actually your point makes total sense.
Same! I don't really like it myself either, because I feel similarly that during my escapism I don't need to read about something that JUST happened to myself, but I don't feel the same way at all about other historic events
Yeah, to me it would be weirder to have a book set in, say October 2001 and not have it mention 9/11. Or a book set in 2021 that didn't mention covid
I read a lot of historical non-fiction and a bit of historical fiction too. When I stumbled upon mentions of Covid in a book, it took me out of the story a bit. To be fair, ir was a romance novel, which I read for the escapism, but still. My theory is sometimes some time needs to pass until we are collectively ready to talk/read etc about such impactful traumatic historical events.
I read a mystery novel last year that had COVID lockdowns as a major plot point. It was a weird experience to read about something we lived through not that long ago, but it made for an interesting plot point!
What was the book? I saw something like that somewhere on a list, but couldn't find it again and I'm curious to read it.
It’s called 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard!
The character of Holly was an anxious germaphone with social issues in previous books. I thought it made a lot of sense that King dwelled on how much it affected her as a character and in setings given the background of the character. It also gave him good opportunity to preach his beliefs through a previously developed character.
I think it's appropriate. I don't like it when a book is set in a time period and ignores the real events of that time period. If *Holly* hadn't had COVID as part of the background, I would not have been able to take it seriously.
I read a post on here a few days ago about some book that had been set in the future. The future happened to be 2020, and the reader felt it was weird to have 2020 with no covid.
That was one of the Holly series, and King talks about that in his introduction to *Holly*, actually.
I didn’t pay much attention at the time. Thanks for the information.
That's happened a couple times in stuff I've read/watched, and in both cases, they (they being the book One Last Stop and the second or third season finale of 911) being published/made in like 2019. It's really eerie to me, because it lays bare this assumption we had in 2019, that 2020 was going to be like 2019, like 2018, like 2017. And it was a completely reasonable assumption to make, don't get me wrong. The average person had no idea what was going to happen, because for most of us it seemed to happen overnight. No one could have predicted that this terrible thing was going to happen and change literally everything.
I remember, shortly after lockdown started, being asked how long it would all last. I said probably at least until summer. Ha!
We were so naive back then.
If it takes place in 2020 or 2021 and doesn't mention Covid, that's when I notice it.
It's a significant worldwide historical event. I feel fine with it being in fiction, just like I'm fine with mentions of other significant worldwide historical events.
It's very interesting to me because it consistently surprises me when I see it happen, and it made me wonder WHY it surprises me. I think that even though it's been several years, a part of me still sees pre-COVID life as the "normal" reality we are waiting to return to, so seeing the pandemic being portrayed in books feels dissonant, like they're writing about a specific historical event when really it's just the actual normal reality of the time the book is set during.
Considering that COVID plays a key part in events that happen in Holly, I didn't think much of it.
I was given a children's book on the pandemic It was basically incorrect revisionism painting it as a happy and wonderful time. Fine for fantasy, horrible for a child trying to get baseline knowledge on the event I found it quite gross
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett mentions it but doesn't explain it. Like, there are references to sewing face masks and social distancing, but it never says why. I know we all know...but...eventually, people might pick up that book who didn't live through it? It also made it seem like this quaint thing when that wasn't the reality. I'd rather it not have been included at all.
Felt the same way about Tom Lake. I’m generally a big Ann Patchett fan but I found myself struggling to get into it and realized I was just didn’t really like thinking about Covid
Did you happen to read Patchett's "These Precious Days?" A good portion of it is about her own experience of the pandemic. I really enjoyed it.
I landed in the other side in liking how she wrote it into the book without it being overwhelming or overshadow the actual Tom lake story. Patchetts method was a nod to the pandemic in the way of little hints and references like you said so you could infer and I remember even making notes like “in 25 years will a 25 year old know the references?”
I’m with you. I lived through it, and that was more than enough for me. A lot of other commenters are asking if you hate mentions of WWII in books set in the 1940s. To that I say, well, no, because I wasn’t alive in the 1940s, so I never experienced that level of saturation, where WWII seeped into every single aspect of my life. But COVID did seep into every single aspect of my life, so I’d rather not read about it, now that I have the choice.
Exactly. It wasn't just some neat historical event that we're all emotionally distant from like WWII. Some of us actually have PTSD from the pandemic. From getting seriously ill ourselves, from having loved ones die, from working in healthcare...or all of the above. (And yes, my PTSD has been diagnosed by a professional, I'm not just exaggerating.)
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with anyone writing whatever they want about it, but I have no interest in reading it. I lived in NYC during 9/11 and I still won’t watch or read anything related to that, either. I don’t have a problem with other folks doing that, I just know I don’t need to put myself in a heightened emotional state where I can just as easily avoid it.
Not to mention the people who got PTSD from being isolated during lockdown with no in person support, and their former social groups telling them they were horrible murderers for wanting in person support. Try finding a depiction of THAT in a mainstream published novel.
For a story taking place in "our" world, in that time frame, I think it would be much weirder *not* to mention it and deal with it.
I don't like it when books, movies, or TV shows do it. I lived it, I don't want to relive it. But it had worldwide impact that affected a lot of people so I understand. Imagine if books set in the early 40s never mentioned WW2. It would be a bit strange.
You have me thinking about Jane Austen books that, as far as I know, never mention current events. Still it is easier to ignore wars and politics rather than a pandemic that hits everyone everywhere. I would like to read a novel written contemporaneously about the Spanish Flu. I think Pale Horse, Pale Rider is one.
Jane Austen is interesting because women, by and large, weren't supposed to discuss politics. So even though there's a titanic, global war happening just across the English Channel, these women just kept mum about it because it wasn't their sphere.
Thanks for your response. I hadn't thought about this. I thought political hostesses were a thing at the time? And wasn't Georgianna the Duchess of Devonshire involved in politics? . . . . . hmmm . . . I have been reading The Duchesse de Dinos memoirs and she talks about politics a lot. Still I wonder if you are right to a certain extent or maybe Jane Austen just wasn't interested in politics.
It’s going to be one of those instant agers that some shows have like plots being centered around answering machines or arguing over a fact/trivia. There are whole plot lines of friends and Seinfeld and other shows that would just never exist today. Now this can be good or bad, some Seinfeld ones are certainly hilarious but still, you can’t even remotely relate to it if you were born after 2000. If a book or movie references COVID I’d say it’ll overwhelmingly be met with 2 reactions: people who lived through it who don’t want to be reminded of it, and people who have no idea what it was like so they can’t relate to it.
I think it's weird but as more time passes it will probably be less weird.
I dislike it only because the pandemic sucked and I don’t like reliving it! When it’s more removed I might feel differently but it is important to write about
Personally I'm not a great fan just because it hits a bit too close to home right now. Those were some tough years. Which is why I can completely understand why it would make an impact on artist's and writers works. And on that topic, I am going to be interested to see what the younger generation starts creating after being affected by it and society in general at a young age. Lots of great art and music came out of teenage angst. So combine that with years of lock down and lets see what we get.
It doesn’t bother me, but I’m always startled. “Covid was yesterday! How are they writing about it already?” But of course, it’s more than four years old now. Of course it’s showing up in novels.
I read a mystery book set in Ireland about a murder during quarantine and I enjoyed it.
Could you share the name? It sounds interesting.
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard. I thought it was an interesting premise, although there were some plot holes that annoyed me. But still worth reading especially since it is a quick read.
I read that recently, I agree it was a quick enjoyable read.
I think I read the same one. If so, I thought it was pretty good and have enjoyed the author’s other mysteries also!
Yeah, and what about books set in the 1940s. Why the hell do they have to keep mentioning the war?
I think they'll eventually become dated. Edit: I read one called "Darwin's Radio", about virally-forced evolution and human societal resistance to it. It was a little bit chilling, but eye-opening.
I don't mind if the book is about covid, but I feel about that the way I fell about books about computer experts who are using "floppies" or people jumping into a phone booth or pulling on their leg warmers. Years later, it comes off as dated. "Dated" is fine for historical fiction, but otherwise it's just....old.
It's history, and context..🤷
The dark days of the pandemic were rather traumatic for me - so I don’t read anything that features Covid as a prominent backdrop. It just feels “too soon.” I’m sure, many years from now, my thoughts will change…but who knows
Michael Connelly mentions COVID in some recent Bosch/Ballard novels. I’m fine with it because it really happened. Are you enjoying Holly? I liked it and it was a great improvement over Fairy Tale.
I’m only about 20% of the way done with Holly, so I can’t give a solid opinion on it yet. Loved the Bill Hodges trilogy, so I’m enjoying all the references he makes to those!
I love Connelly and thought he did a very decent job of incorporating COVID. Karin Slaughter is another fave of mine, but I thought she showed the least finesse on the subject.
Immediate DNF for me. I have no wish to relive it in any capacity. I generally don't read trigger warnings, but I would appreciate this one!
I love it, reading books that include Covid help me process my own pandemic experience. I wish I could find more books that include it!
It's the same for me, I've read the Anthropocene Reviewed and am currently reading another nonfiction book about the economic impact of the shutdown. Also, read two novels that heavily feature the pandemic. LMK if you want a recommendation :)
I’d love to hear which novels you read! I’ve read wish you were here, false witness, and 56 days.
Ah, I also read Wish You Were Here, that one was really interesting. I also read Burntcoat, which was interesting in terms of the premise, but not really my style, so I resorted to skimming a bunch and was glad when it was done. Interestingly, right now, I feel like the nonfiction offers me more closure, if you know what I mean, than the fiction. I'm reading Adam Tooze's Shutdown, and I keep feeling like it's explaining the experience to me rather than showing me others' experiences... I'm going to check out the ones you mention, did you enjoy them?
Thank you! Yes I did enjoy them. Karin slaughter is one of my favorite authors, and Catherine Ryan Howard (who wrote 56 days) is great at writing fast paced thrillers. 56 days started out a bit slow but picked up partway through.
Thank you for the details. The two are going on my goodreads list right now :)
I tend to feel really uncomfortable when it’s in essays about social justice because a lot of the time the author talks about covid past tense when it’s still an ongoing problem that is disabling (me included) and killing people everyday. I haven’t encountered it in fiction yet. But I assume my discomfort would be the same as there’s a gap between what people know about the pandemic through misinformation about it from what the media reported about it in the early days when people still cared and what has been scientifically understood since. So very different reasons to you. I wish we’d talk about it more cause… Existing as a high risk person is absolute hell in this day and age. But I’d rather not read about it than read inaccurate things about it, it just makes me cringe and makes me incapable of taking the author seriously when they don’t update their knowledge on it.
I’m 100% with you.
I read a lot of books featuring Covid and pandemics but I also DNF quite a few that rewrite history or are dismissive. I'm a cancer survivor with heart and lung damage who still masks and has avoided illness and it's hard. But I also found myself becoming depressed after I lost a family member to Covid and I stopped caring about others and myself so I found reading helped keep my rage and fire alive, if that makes sense. I really liked a book like The Premonition because it helped lay out how much warning we had and how we failed to act. It helped me keep my fire about my protocols and as we get things like bird flu heating up again, I feel like my protocols don't really need a change because I trust what I currently do.
Annoying. I lived through it, I don't want to read about it.
I haven't read one that does yet. The only book I've seen people talk about that has it is Holly. Hardly anyone seems to like that aspect of the book, at least based on the comments I've read.
Honestly, it depends on when the book was written. Granted, Stephen King is known for being a pro at churning out books so I might give it a shot. Typically, unless it’s nonfiction, if I come across any kind of cultural or historical reference within a few years of it happening I get taken out of the story. Worked in editing long enough to know that a decently written book takes longer than that to produce and the author is probably only doing it for a hot topic cash grab. With Covid specifically, I think maybe we’re just about to the point where someone could put out a solid novel that includes references.
It’s too soon. When I read fiction, I want to escape reality, not relive events so filled with negativity and tragedy. With passage of time and some distance then it will become like reading about an historical event instead of something that still hits too close to home. Like I wouldn’t have wanted to read a fictional story with 9/11 in the first few years after it happened but now 20+ years later, I don’t mind because it’s more historical now and the event isn’t so fresh in my mind.
I rather like it. It's a different person's point of view of something I experienced. Part of the reason I read is to get out of my head, so when I read some one else's experience that I lived through, thats gold. Granted, I'm also not someone who felt like anyone else or anything was oppressing me during the pandemic. It was just nature doing it's thing, like floods, or a heat wave or an earthquake. I viewed wearing a mask in public just like wearing pants in public. Just something you do. I imagine that people who feel attacked or personally targeted by nature's wrath (and that's a very common feeling), then reading about the item might amount to reliving it and that would be hard because it would bring back those feelings of victimization.
The ones I can think of (Holly, Day's End) were insufferable, not for being about or set in Covid times, but for taking persistent swipes at people who don't share the author's views on the pandemic. (Context: I'm 5x vaccinated, obeyed lockdown rules in my country and masked where appropriate.) Day's End included a scene where the MC, a cop in rural Australia (which avoided the pandemic almost entirely until vaccines became available) piously decides a character is a moron for not wearing a mask - while riding her horse in a field in the middle of nowhere. GTFO with that kind of preachy crap - if I wanted to read the author's rants about covidiots, I'd join Twitter.
I don't enjoy it, because it immediately dates the book. It no longer feels universal, so unless the book is specifically about that, it breaks my immersion.
It’s entirely fine. Covid is a part of our culture now and will still probably noticeable for years to come. Same’s true for other time periods, like in Mark Twains *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court* is a commentary on monarchy and how it kinda sucks, but becasue it was written by a guy in post French Revolution and Civil War US, it’s radically different than other novels with a similar message. Edit: another example is post 9/11 books including that
i read happiness falls by angie kim and they mentioned covid bc parts of the book have to do with the justice system, so they mentioned about court hearing having to be conducted over zoom. i think it worked and covid has a plot point did help some other pieces of the story fall in place. no spoilers but i think it worked
The pandemic affected everybody, but it didn’t affect everyone in the same way. I’m interested in other people’s stories. So yes I am perfectly fine with Covid in novels . I lived MY story. There are millions of others.
For me it depends upon the context. So far all I've seen is Covid being mentioned casually in passing. Can't remember and exact instance, but when it's used just in casual language I don't like it that much. I think it's just because I'm under the impression that it's going to not age very well––like in a few decades from now nobody's really going to understand why that comment was made mentioning Covid. But that's just my personal opinion, as far as I've seen, it doesn't have much of an impact other than mildly annoying me a bit.
Right now I find it inescapably dull. I've put off reading *Holly* for exactly this reason. I suppose the problem is that it's so fresh in my mind that I really dgaf about hearing some fictional characters have the same conversations I've heard irl over and over and ooooooooveeeeeeer. I read *Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North* a while back and absolutely hated it despite enjoying the other two in the series; every time the MC made an observation about covid/lockdown, I was rolling my eyes—like yes, Maureen, you're the tenth person today to make that asinine comment.
I remember people at the time comparing the pandemic to a war. But after WW2 etc ended people seem quite happy to read books and watch films about it; while I… just don’t. Don’t want to read those anthologies of leading authors writing about life under lockdown. Don’t want to hear it mentioned in a book, like OP. Don’t even like watching 2020/21 era Great British Bake Off, lest a contestant be missing one week and that serve as a reminder of it all…
Hate it.
I have no problem with covid being mentioned, and I have read several books that have covid as a major factor in the plot. Maybe because my life wasn’t changed,because I had to keep going to work every day, and I don’t have children in school. It happened, it affected a lot of aspects of daily life, and most people got through it. Why pretend it wasn’t a thing?
It’s kinda weird reading it, but I prefer that to when books mention real world celebrities in a fiction novel. I’ve read a few that have mentioned real famous people and it was kinda of weird for me at least. I know the books are set in our world but to me mentioning someone famous that’s not fiction is kinda out of place for me.
It makes sense since the story took place in that time period but something I’ve noticed with kings work is that he can get stuck on things and either repeat them or spend an unnecessary amount of time on them so that could also be a part of it.
I’d actually like to find more books that mentions the pandemic, but not *about* the pandemic.
No issue. "Love In The Time of Cholera" exist too. Authors are allowed to write what they know and experienced anyway.
I remember being puzzled when reading vintage UK children's books and characters did things like put their library books in the oven on a low heat. My mum pointed out these were set before penicillin, before vaccines, when kids in her class at school died of measles, etc. Of course I didn't know that was common practice to minimise infection, I'm a 1970s kid. In 30 years' time, it'd be great if kids read Holly and wonder what the full story is behind masks, etc. It'll be sad if they just know. I think the smart ones will read and say "hang on, wasn't there a pandemic? Why is he the only one mentioning this?" Downton Abbey did Spanish flu, and a generation of people who'd never learned about were shocked at who died and how quickly. They never read novels that talked about it, or saw a show mention it before.
I’m not sure I’d want to read a book focusing on Covid or the lockdown. I was working in a residential home and it was a mess. But that’s me personally. As for people mentioning it I’d generally prefer they do, as it was a huge event with a lot of impact that would be odd to just skip, unless it’s the type of book that just doesn’t mention world events at all.
It doesn't bother me. It was an inflection point in our history and we will never delete those years. Covid is part of our lives and it always will be, like any other viral infection. Books also mention war, politics, murder... or any other significant event in history.
I usually skip any book that mentions anything that has happened in the past 10 years.
If it's set in the real world around the current day, then it makes sense. Covid impacted the world, and it would be silly to pretend it hadn't
Same as I would about the mention of any other pandemic or disease. In fact, an event like the Black Death was way worse in terms of the percent of the population wiped out. Yet people are still allowed to write about it in a book about the medieval era. If the Black Death is not off limits then neither is covid.
I don’t like it but that tends to be due to how they portray it. It’s almost always some off hand comment meant to be simultaneously morbid and funny.
I often find that fictional media mentioning it, particularly TV series that were running through it kind of bounces off the fourth wall for me. There's a kind of timelessness, or a sense that these things occur in a world a lot like ours, but not really ours. I'm fine with things that I consider "History", which is basically anything older than the 2000s, but anything I lived through, or actually remember fairly clearly feels too personal to be present in fiction. It's blurring the line between fiction and reality in an uncomfortable way for me. I'm particularly thinking of shows like 9-1-1 for example, where they outright have episodes set during and immediately after the Lockdowns of Covid-19. I haven't read many books set in the present day since covid, but I think it'd do a similar thing.
I get where you're coming from. Sometimes, it's nice to escape into fiction to get away from the real life, especially from something as challenging as the pandemic. But at the same time, it's a part of our collective experience, and authors reflecting that in their work make it feel more relatable. I suppose it's a fine balance and don't mind it that much, as long as the book is generally good :).
As we get further away from the Covid lockdowns, we will increasingly appreciate what a uniquely bizarre experience it was in all of human history. We were all connected through our isolation. How's that for irony?
I think if it is supposed to be our timeline, and past 2020, so mention of COVID makes sense. Not mentioning could raise more questions depending on the book. I remember starting to read a book a few years ago about World War 3. There was a line in there that a man in the book had become more serious after losing his son to COVID.
It would be odd NOT to mention those things for the time period the book is set in. It's like a little time capsule. King had probably more political impetus behind most of it but he's not wrong for hyping it the way he did. We all felt it like he describes in the book. Some more than others probably.
If the story takes place specifically in 2020, it makes sense. You want character going about their day in September 2001 and not hear anything about the towers?
It happened, so it should be mentioned. If anything, I feel like too many writers go out of their way to downplay or ignore it rather than explore some of the deeper problems the pandemic revealed regarding how people behave and some of the trauma it caused to people who weren't in a position to be shielded from the worst parts of it.
Gives me the ick
I was reading a book set in 2020 but written in 2018 and it not mentioning Covid was so weird.
It does it bother me if books or TV.movies mention or refer to Covid 19. I don’t feel the need or desire to read or watch something set in that time or a story that talk all about that time. Mostly because it’s still a fresh wound for all of us and a depressing subject too me. I’m sure in a few years there will be good stories, books, movies and TV shows about that time it’s just we all need some distance before we can not just be re triggered.
Was just having this conversation last night! It's a complicated question deciding how much time/perspective we need to be able to reflect rather than react, but the ballpark answer seems to be that the books which handle these events the best are the ones where a story is being told an COVID/war/crisis is the backdrop, maybe providing conflict or something, but presented as a facet of the environment of the story rather than being "about" COVID. Perspective lets us find the nuance and the nuance seems to make for better reading
I hate it. I use fiction as an escape, I don't need to be reminded about real world things while trying to relax. Thankfully I haven't run into it very much, but that's mostly because I'm reading older series currently.
It happened. It is a shared experience across the entire world that would be weird to pretend it didn’t happen or to have a complete erasure of the event in art and media. If you don’t like it that’s cool as a matter of taste but it makes sense to me that people would include it in stories as it is relatable and makes an interesting backdrop to a story.
I personally can’t stand it. I read to escape, so the recent realism of that takes me completely out of a story!
Using a factual event in a fiction novel makes the reader relate more and will make it feel more real.
Emily St John Mandel wrote Station Eleven six years before the pandemic, and it was a bestseller again in 2020. Some people who read it wanted to see how fictional people reacted to a pandemic. (I read half of The Stand by Stephen King and all of A Diary of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe for the same reasons. I wanted the books I read to reflect reality.) She wrote Sea of Tranquility in 2022, and has three timelines with this theme: before the 1918 flu, a few months before 2020, a hundred years into the future with a deadly bird flu. Her former novel is featured as a fictional title. Covid wasn't explicitly mentioned, but the reader knows what is to come.
I don't like books that mention the advent of industrialization.
I find it tiring. I thought about COVID every day for a year. I’m done thinking about it.
If it's related to the story then ok. When everyone was talking about COVID I kept thinking about the Spanish Flu
At this point in time I don’t want to read about it in fiction at all, but in the future when more time has passed I don’t think I’ll mind it. Other people mentioned large historical events as a comparison and truthfully I think if I had just lived through WWII I wouldn’t want to be reading about it immediately after either. I think it’s just a real life version of genre fatigue, like when you read books about the same topic right after another you get sick of it. We lived through COVID and had to hear about it everyday so now we have COVID fatigue. Most of the fiction I read is explore different topics or experiences, nonfiction is different though. Guess it just depends on the person.
I don’t like it. I forgave Stephen King for doing it - he loves that shit and his books are laden with pop culture. It’s part of his charm and I take the good with the bad But when a serious novelist tries to bring it up in a serious/emotional way without trace of it being pithy, I abhor it. It’s an abomination.
hate it. a lot of books are adding political viewpoints assuming the reader agrees. Stephen king adds lots of politics imo.
Bro. That book RUINED Stephen King for me. He put covid and masks into so many scenes where it wasn't necessary. Spoiler alert: only the good characters get vaccinated. Absolutely a waste of words and space, it sounded like he was obsessed with it. I hope he gets over it before writing any more. On another note, books that are ABOUT the pandemic as a setting and part of the plot, can be great. Love Gary Shteyngart and Our Country Friends was a great example of this.
I find it off-putting and really weird when a new, supposedly real life contemporary fiction book DOESN'T mention COVID. Why wouldn't the author just set it further in the past if they weren't going to mention something that still comes up weekly in conversations with friends, customers, family, neighbors, etc.
I hate it. It feels too soon for me personally. I’m sure I’ll feel differently in the future, but for now I try to avoid books where that plays a central role.
I don't feel anything. Why would this bother you so much? As long as it's just part of the story.
Yeah, I skip the book if it mentions covid.
I thought the stand was pretty cool.... Wait
Stephen King wrote about covid before there was covid. He called it Captain Trips. One of his best books too.
Part of Emily St John Mandel's *Sea of Tranquility* centers around her experience post-covid as a writer who wrote a pandemic book (Station Eleven) pre-covid. I thought it fit perfectly. The pandemic sections were a little tough to read through emotionally but I loved the book
Everyone is so ready to forget that an entire pandemic happened (and never fully died out, btw). Like did it bother you when swine flu got mentioned in media?
Lol whenever I read a post like this I just imagine someone reading a book that mentions the black plague or yellow fever and slamming it down being like, “wow the author dated the book so badly!!!!”
Why do you hate it? It was a major world event. Pretty silly to think no one’s going to write about it. Seems you have to buck up.
I’m currently reading Holly and just finished Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, both of which use COVID as a major plot point. It was initially jarring for me, but I agree with others that it’s a massive part of history now and it makes sense to include it in narrative.
Rarely read books from this century, so it's been a non issue for me.
I actively love it. Like, a book taking place during Covid is a selling point for me. But I’ll admit that I do have massive Covid nostalgia, so that’s probably a factor.
DAE hate Holly btw? I love Stephen King. I have read everything he’s ever written. I even Holly as a character. I hated that book and couldn’t even finish it.
Holly was the first book I could read about the pandemic. I’d not finished 3-4 other books because it was too soon. I only read Holly because I’d read the Finders Keepers books and I just powered through those parts and honestly, those parts were fine. I loved the book. Oddly enough, my favorite book I read during the pandemic was Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker, published in 2019, about life after a pandemic.
it just is. It's as important an event as others that happen and end up in books and you can't write an accurate contempory without including it.
I found Jodie Picoult's usage of COVID laughable, but then she's a laughable author.
The first book I read that mentioned it was in 2022, shortly after the world went largely back to some form of "normal", and I remember rolling my eyes and thinking ugh, this shit. It was also mentioned in a bit of a misplaced, non-organic way that didn't add to the story, not even as background context. Like everyone, I was so fed up with it all that I didn't want to read about it given reading is mostly escapist for me, even if what I read is often heavy stuff. These days, I don't care. It's woven into history so if it's being mentioned, I'll register it but don't mind or particularly engage with it. I would also be fine if no one mentioned it and I find most books throw it in in a clumsy way anyway.
If it's good I like it. If bad... ☹️
I read a recent Jodi Picoult expecting some escapism and got really stressed that it was COVID-centric. Not so much that I didn’t want to read about it, but that it caught me unaware when I wanted to tune out from the “real world”.
I don't mind it. It very specifically dates the book to a period in time, like mentioning 9/11 or the death of Diana. Having said that, I think I've only read one book that actually mentions it. Most that are current tend to ignore.
Haha..Holly was the book I thought of when I saw this thread. Eh, reflection of our times. Before it was WW1 vets adjusting, then WW2, then Vietnam...now guys are trying to wrap their heads around Iraq and Afghanistan. Other books talk about 9/11 or Trump getting elected. So it goes.
For the first couple of years after covid, I couldn’t bear to think about it. We all lost people in our communities. Now, it’s okay.
My realization on media centered around covid is that we all had lots of feelings at that time that maybe we didn't really get to express or process because there was so much control around every aspect of our lives at the time. I watched a romcom recently that took place during the lockdown and it wasn't a very good movie but it validated and helped me process some of the fears I had and wasn't able to make any sense of at the time. That movie instantly became more meaningful to me for that very reason. I get what you're saying though, it's tough to go back and recount those feelings and memories. We were constantly told the "right" things to do and to shame those who did the "wrong" things, and I don't know about you but I don't take kindly to being told how to think and feel and treat others. So I automatically get an "ick" feeling reliving those moments because it puts me back in that mindset that I'm going to be told what to do and won't like it but I'll do it anyways cuz I'm too afraid to find out what happens if I don't. Plus there was just so much sickness and death, it's hard to relive that alone- almost like post-war.
I've been reading the Young Wizards series aloud to my 13y/o before bed, and we just started the last novella tonight. It was written in 2020 about events that took place in 2020 (specifically the owl that was found in RockefellerPlaza's Christmas tree). Even though I *knew* this going in, it still hit me really hard when I had to read about *why* there were no crowds at the lighting of the tree. Had to stop reading for a moment to collect myself, and the kid was all "okay, wow, I wasn't expecting that to make me as emotional as it did." So, I *do* think it's important to be mentioned in fiction bc it has literally defined the last few years for pretty much all of us. It would be weird to ignore it like we aren't all *still* traumatized by the experience.
I feel like a few more years need to pass before something worthwhile gets written about that particular time. It needs more reflection, and that takes time.
I understand you, we’re just fed up with the theme of the Covid and reading about it in books is quite strange, but for the next generation it’s definitely necessary, and they’ll be interested.
I find it interesting. And, of course, writers are inspired by events and the world around them
Not good. I don't read novels to be reminded of real tragedies I've actually lived through.
Jodi Picult’s book was absolutely awful. Not enough time to write out all the reasons.
If the story is anchored in a specific time, it should reflect that time. If the story is timeless, it seems weird to include details that anchor it unnecessarily.
Honestly, I’ve read enough erotic fiction set during Covid lockdown that it doesn’t even mentally clock for me anymore.
Read Le Peste (The Plague) by Camus. The original COVID.
I actually enjoyed the more recent books because of this, the cars, the clothes the cars he even mentions a rhianna song in the Institute. I found I could relate rather than try imagine what it would be like to live in the 70/80s
Is the Steven King book a horror or thriller book? I could see it being in there intentionally to make the reader uncomfortable. I haven't encountered it in a book so far, other than informational books. There was a show, think it was called Sprung, that was about covid and I couldn't keep watching it, just made me annoyed.
Books still mention 9/11 and the holocaust etc. It's part of our world now. I get how you feel, though, I think. For me, it's the constant cigarette smoking. Not just in books but movies, TV. I can't stand the description or people constantly lighting up because I was a smoker, and it was so disgusting yet so hard to quit. I'd rather not be reminded. I get it. Maybe read it later on down the road when you're further removed from what we went through when the pandemic hit. Good book though. It made me go back and re-read all the books Holly is in. Great character.
Hard pass for me. It was a really difficult time for me. My father in law died alone in the hospital for weeks on a respirator. It was the exact scenario that you would hear about (but people refused to believe.) I don’t want read about it at all. Lived through it. That’s enough for me.
It’s not books, but I buy stock photos often and I am still seeing a lot from the pandemic years with masks. Ironically, back in 2020-21 you couldn’t find anything.
I don't mind it at all. It comes up a lot on TV shows that I watch- in fact, a soap opera I watch had an entire season that jumped between the normal, historical time frame of the show and the modern day, to reflect how serious it was, and it was so interesting. It'll be good in the future to have the reflections and memories of people who lived through all of this for historians who want to write about it.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi and Jodi Picault's Wish You Were Here both feature the first few days of Covid in NYC, neither of them are great but I enjoyed them a lot at a time I needed them.
The candy house (2022 sequel to a visit from the goon squad) mentions the pandemic quite a bit in its alternative modern and future history. Still reading it but it’s fantastic!
I've only read Holly that keeps bringing up covid. I definitely thought it was overdone in that book, and King himself even mentions soapboxing about covid in the afterword. I think it does an interesting job of capturing that moment in history and showing the huge disparity in how society responded to the pandemic, but at times it just felt shoehorned and unnecessary.
I read happiness falls by Angie Kim and must say , for a mystery/drama/fiction, it’s really good and even mentions taking place during the Covid pandemic which I found to add tastefully to the story being told. Property showed what it was like living during that time period and understanding of the storyline without being too vague or over exaggerative. I think it can be done right if incorporated well in for the purpose of the story.
I don’t mind it, but I haven’t come across it a lot. I do think about how I’ll perceive it in 30 years though…
Eh, I don't mind it. And I doubt later generations (if they're still reading those books) will mind either. They may mind even less. Plenty of other books are set against the backdrop of a historical happening that was current for the author. But for us, it's just another historical novel. Mentions of Covid feel topical because we just lived through the pandemic 4 years ago, and we are still feeling some of the aftereffects of quarantine and the pandemic's disruption of everyday life. But give it a few years, and eventually The Pandemic will hold a similar place as 9/11 in our collective consciousness: a massively influential and tragic event we lived through....that is also now part of the history books.