06/07/2021
Pedersen’s memoir dives into the early days of 2020’s coronavirus pandemic, when the unthinkable quickly became the new standard. Pedersen, a former New York Times business columnist and author of Buffalo Gal and Life in New York, guides readers through the year that everything stopped, from rumors spreading of an invisible disease to the start of the global lockdown and beyond. She paints a portrait of Manhattan in a slow-moving tragedy, capturing the confusion of the “pause” order that preceded the shutdowns, the increasing strangeness of familiar surroundings—“Instead of lost scrunchies and balled tissues, bridle path was littered with latex gloves and face masks”— and horrors like hospitals parking gurneys in chapels and gift shops.
Pedersen also tries to illuminate cause for hope. Capturing the era’s small moments, such as operas belted off apartment balconies and the worldwide BLM protests for George Floyd, she emphasizes our need to work together to survive possible extinction. She sums up a world gone haywire with enticing depth and wry humor, reminding readers of the “feral swine bomb” that hit the news just before election day, and relishing the marvelously obscene handwritten sign a liquor store posted establishing new rules for its customers.
Pedersen continually likens living in New York during 2020 to being a frightened kid caught between a “Guv Dad” (Cuomo) and “Mayor Mom” (de Blasio) who continuously argue about how to handle the crisis. Such sharp humor might strike some readers as insensitive, but those on her wavelength will relish it. When her 83 year old mother, a former nurse, gets called out of retirement, Pedersen cracks “What did they want her to do exactly? I suggested she could be in charge of helping with crossword puzzle clues.” Pedersen offers readers–especially those locked down in the Big Apple–and the future a clear-eyed, cathartic recap of a devastating time.
Takeaway: An illuminating and darkly humorous look at Manhattan life during the pandemic.
Great For Fans Of: An Sperry’s The COVID Chronicles: A Hermosa Beach Memoir, Lauren McKeon’s Women of the Pandemic: Stories from the Frontlines of COVID-19.
Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A
"With equal measure of lively wit and solemnity, former New York Times columnist Laura Pedersen powerfully recalls the unprecedented events of the Covid-19 pandemic. IT'S COME TO THIS is a must read for anyone trying to make sense of our tumultuous year." ‒BlueInk Review (starred review)
Pedersen's writing is conversational, but with occasional breathtaking lines. In response to the common refrain in the early days of the pandemic that we're all in this together, she writes "We were in the same tempest, but very different boats-from rafts and rowboats to yachts and speedboats."... IT'S COME TO THIS is an ideal pandemic diary; it captures the changes and strangeness brought about by Covid-19. -Clarion
Pedersen, a former New York Times columnist and author of Buffalo Gal and Life in New York, guides readers through the year that everything stopped, from rumors spreading of an invisible disease to the start of the global lockdown and beyond. Pedersen offers readers-especially those locked down in the Big Apple-and the future a clear-eyed, cathartic recap of a devastating time. Takeaway: An illuminating and darkly humorous look at Manhattan life during the pandemic. ‒BookLife
2021-05-20
In this memoir, a New Yorker offers reflections on the year of Covid-19, complete with a look at former President Donald Trump and his administration.
From Covid-19’s first appearance on the West Coast in the beginning of 2020 to the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Pedersen tracks the local, national, and global progression and consequences of the virus that would change everything during a year of stress, craziness, and an ever increasing death toll. It is hard to imagine anyone being able to make readers laugh—or at least chuckle—with such a narrative. But the author, who has written five plays and 18 books, composes paragraphs rich in sarcasm and irony. Although she is an unabashed progressive, even her beloved New Yorkers and their leaders do not always escape her sharp commentary. It is not long before Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio become “Guv Dad” and “Mayor Mom,” trying to get their millions of kids to behave and stay safe: “Mayor Mom wanted to talk things out and employ more ‘social distancing ambassadors’ for a socially distanced group hug. Guv Dad was having none of it.” “Daft Uncle Donald” was always ready to exacerbate the parental discord with some new revelation: “We’d have very few cases if testing stopped.” Acerbic wit notwithstanding, Pedersen’s edgy memoir is an exhaustive, chronologically organized, and annotated compendium of the multitude of crises that roiled the country—the pandemic, the scarcity of Covid-19 tests, the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, historic hurricanes, an explosion of wildfires, and the dangerous miracle cures that were instantly debunked. Remember Trump pondering injecting disinfectants into the human body? The book is both political and personal—a newsreel of 2020 that viscerally and angrily captures the tragedy, confusion, and communal anxiety of the year from an author who lived in one of the country’s first virus epicenters. At one point, Pedersen describes early June as New York City entered Phase 1 of the reopening: “Finally, we all had toilet paper, but the FDA announced a shortage of the antidepressant Zoloft and its generic equivalents.”
Familiar pandemic terrain revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.
