Voices from the Pandemic Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage and Resilience

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter, a powerful and cathartic portrait of a country grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic—from feeling afraid and overwhelmed to extraordinary resilient—told through voices of people from all across America


The Covid-19 pandemic was a world-shattering event, affecting everyone in the nation. From its first ominous stirrings, renowned journalist Eli Saslow began interviewing a cross-section of Americans to capture their experiences in real time: An exhausted and anguished EMT risking his life in New York City; a grocery store owner feeding his neighborhood for free in locked-down New Orleans; an overwhelmed coroner in Georgia; a Maryland restaurateur forced to close his family business after forty-six years; an Arizona teacher wrestling with her fears and her obligations to her students; rural citizens adamant that the entire pandemic is a hoax, and retail workers attacked for asking customers to wear masks; patients struggling to breathe and doctors desperately trying to save them.
 
Through Saslow's masterful, empathetic interviewing, we are given a kaleidoscopic picture of a people dealing with the unimaginable. These deeply personal accounts constitute a crucial, heartbreaking record of the sweep of experiences during this troubled time, and show us America from its worst and to its resilient best.

ELI SASLOW is a reporter for The Washington Post, and the author of Ten Letters, American Hunger, and Rising Out of Hatred, which won the 2019 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He was awarded The Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2014 and was a Pulitzer Finalist in Feature Writing in 2013, 2016 and 2017. The series on which this book is based won the 2020 George Polk award for Oral History.