A Pandemic Novel That’s Oddly Soothing

At this point, two months into a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, and assuming that you’re lucky enough to have been able to stay home, either you’re the kind of person who’s streamed contagion movies on Netflix or you’re not. Either you’re someone who’s compelled, in the middle of unthinkable calamity, to probe the nuances of that calamity through uncannily resonant works of culture or you’re not. (If you’re in the latter camp, you probably haven’t been able to watch during the Donald Trump presidency.) Back in mid-March, a few days into self-imposed quarantine, I tried to watch and found myself having a reaction akin to acute stress: elevated heart rate, sweating, fretful fidgeting. During the scene on the plane when the kid’s hand hovers over the feverish, rheumy Patrick Dempsey’s discarded cookie, I almost screamed. It