A Year in Reading: Zak Salih

I’m writing this on an overcast afternoon in uncertain times. Two hours ago, my youngest sister called to inform me of her positive COVID-19 test results, my sister who just had dinner with my mother and father two days earlier, my mother whose voice sounds hoarse over the phone and my father who has quarantined himself in the guest bedroom, both of whom will be getting tested tomorrow and, while not ancient, are most certainly seniors with pre-existing conditions, which means even more anxiety and worry and fear and anger and disgust and disappointment and dread in a year that seems, collectively, to have let all of us down.

Amid the uncertainty,