Shayna Small delivers a variety of accents as a group of New Yorkers gather on the rooftop of their dilapidated building during the COVID-19 pandemic, telling stories to pass the time. The audiobook features a "pots-and-pans symphony" that applauds the healthcare workers who risk their lives to treat the sick. Small shines in this reboot of another plague novel, Boccaccio's DECAMERON, written in the fourteenth century as bubonic plague raced across Europe. The Authors Guild, the nation's longest-running organization for writers, brought together 36 authors whose names grace the audiobook's jacket; they include Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers, Celeste Ng, Scott Turow, Mira Jacob, Tommy Orange, Tess Gerritsen, R.L. Stine, Weike Wang, and Ishmael Reed. Each author was assigned a separate part of the story. R.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

12/18/2023

This beguiling novel of the Covid-19 pandemic was coauthored by 36 members of the Authors Guild, including Atwood, Preston, John Grisham, and Celeste Ng. The loosely connected narrative portrays a group of tenants who regularly convene on the rooftop of their New York City apartment building during the lockdown to share stories with one another. It begins on Mar. 31, 2020, with the arrival of a new unnamed super, who inherits a handbook from her predecessor with a list of the current tenants identified by their nicknames. They include “Whitney,” a librarian who works at the Whitney Museum and tells a ghost story about a fallen soldier at the Alamo. There’s also “Maine,” an ER doctor who’s visiting from Maine to help with the overload of Covid cases, and who shares a story about a nun’s ability to predict patients’ time of death at the doctor’s Maine hospital. As the weeks go by, the super declines to share a story of her own until the final evening on April 13, when her revelation casts the tenants’ situation in a new light. Though the authors’ contributions aren’t identified until the end notes, the reader senses various shifts in style and voice, which can be welcome or jarring, depending on one’s taste. Still, fans of literary puzzles will find this worthwhile. (Feb.)

A Lit Hub "Most Anticipated Books of 2022" * A Hartford Courant "Highly Anticipated Book" * A Readers Digest "New Books We Can't Wait to Read" * A PBS "Monthly Book Recommendation" * A New York Times "New Book to Read" * An Amazon Editor's Pick * The Messenger's "10 Must Read Books" — -

“An immensely enjoyable product of an immensely unenjoyable time, Fourteen Days is lively, freewheeling and, with its skillfully paced denouement – the super herself’s tale – an impressive achievement.”
— The Guardian

"Paradise for avid readers.” — Los Angeles Times

“A rich melting pot of characters and genres. . . . A valuable reminder that stories can teach, console, provide a place of acceptance and perhaps even change their readers (or listeners).”  — Financial Times

"Poignant and emotionally resonant. . . . Should you wait until you’re finished to read the end notes that detail who wrote what?. . . I guarantee some of the matches—and the way the stories are thrown together—will surprise you.” — San Francisco Chronicle

"An interesting experiment in collective storytelling." — Literary Hub

"Proves that even a global pandemic can’t curb creativity . . . that the stories we leave behind are what makes us human.” — Associated Press

"These stories introduce a theme of diversity that’s one of the joys of the book. There are ghost stories, a war story, many tales of betrayal and revenge, and a report on Shakespeare’s plague experience by scholar James Shapiro. . . . A multicultural tribute to the New York lockdown experience. . . . Moving and . . . funny.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Beguiling. . . . Fans of literary puzzles will find this worthwhile.” — Publishers Weekly

“…the storytellers are splendidly diverse in race, age, gender, ethnicity, and calling….Putting a bold new twist on the plague novel, this bountiful, unpredictable, witty, and affecting tale-of-tales is made all the more intriguing by the fact that it’s a collaboration by 36 exceptional North American writers….This enthralling novel of many voices and moods dramatizes the transformation of isolation into community via stories and explores a grand spectrum of human experiences.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Reading Fourteen Days is like sitting by a campfire, with characters taking turns telling tales about their lives.”
— The Economist

"Highly entertaining." — Berkshire Edge

“The stories lead toward an overall point about how people form communities. When the group offers hospitality toward the end, it is apparent that the individual storytellers, for all their differences, have become a community. It's a sign of hope and resilience for humanity.” — Daily Kos

“The publication of Fourteen Days could not have been more timely…The power of much of the writing here is undeniable, as is the sense of personal testimony.” — The Guardian

2023-11-15
A Decameron-esque storytelling collaboration with a Covid-19 premise.

Thirty-six authors contributed to this lively and predictably somewhat uneven work of fiction sponsored by and benefiting the Authors Guild Foundation, styled as an unclaimed manuscript found in New York’s lost property office. The narrative within is set on the rooftop of a Lower East Side “six-floor walk-up with the farcical name of the Fernsby Arms, a decaying crapshack tenement that should have been torn down long ago,” per the lively frame story penned by Douglas Preston in the persona of Yessenia Grigorescu, the building’s super. From a notebook left by her predecessor in the job, Yessie knows the tenants by evocative sobriquets: The Lady With the Rings, Amnesia, Eurovision, Hello Kitty, the Poet, Vinegar, and so forth. They come up to the roof at 7 p.m. to participate in the huzzah for health care workers, which was a nightly ritual during Manhattan’s lockdown, and then settle into the routine of sharing stories, each written by a different author. One is constantly flipping to the backmatter to see who wrote what; though not all authors are household names, plenty are—Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, John Grisham, Erica Jong, Tommy Orange, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Meg Wolitzer, and more—though it’s not always the big names who contribute the best work. Fortunately, Preston’s frame story keeps everything moving. Day One gets off to a rollicking start, with stories from Merenguero’s Daughter and The Therapist, actually Maria Hinojosa and Celeste Ng. Anchored in Dominican and Chinese culture, respectively, these stories introduce a theme of diversity that’s one of the joys of the book. There are ghost stories, a war story, many tales of betrayal and revenge, and a report on Shakespeare’s plague experience by scholar James Shapiro. Little to no information is provided about the process behind the book, how contributors were chosen, etc. Since celebrity-watching is part of the draw, that could have been fun.

A multicultural tribute to the New York lockdown experience. Many parts are moving and/or funny; others, easy to skip.