The plot of Lawrence Wrights new novel was always prescient.
But it came true much sooner than he thought it would.
What Did They Know?
A Vulture series on artists whose work foretold our pandemic-stricken world.
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I had a sense that what I had written was about to unfold, he recently recalled.
Watching each of these events play out in reality, Wright experienced a kind of astonishment, he said.
The End of Octoberwill be published later this month, two weeks earlier than initially planned.
I dont see myself as a prophet or even particularly prescient, he said.
The question that journalism normally asks is, What happened?
Its not a very big step from that to say, Whatcouldhappen?
Larry clearly set out todramatizethat warning in the shape of a novel.
And then everything happened too soon, too horribly.
Scott challenged Wright to write a script inspired by the unanswered question that hangs over McCarthys story.
As Wright put it: What would it take to cause our civilization to fracture?
Wright considered nuclear war and terrorism the obvious culprits.
Hed been impressed by the bravery of the health-care workers and scientists hed met.
Diseases are a kind of invisible enemy, he said.
They dont announce themselves until they suddenly spring onto the stage.
In part, this was a result of our hubris.
But nature has not stopped creating new forms of diseases.
It reminded him of conversations hed had with counterterrorism experts while researchingThe Siege.
In both cases, Wright said, there was a level of anxiety that I had totally not expected.
He decided hed turn his script into a novel, and immersed himself in research once again.
Wright is known for his exhaustive and meticulous reporting.
Stories in which a middle-aged, workaholic virologist is the hero are in short supply, he wrote.
Little was left of modernity except for weapons, Wright narrates in his plainspoken, reporterly voice.
Wright told me hes experienced something similar.
He ordered seeds and planted lettuce.
I was taking a note from my hero that we should do the same, he said.
But the world is nonetheless fundamentally transformed, and not for the better.
I wrote the book in a period of national desolation.
And so the book reflects that attitude.
And frankly, by the end of the book, the country doesnt succeed in meeting the challenge.
The Black Death led to the Renaissance.
It ended the Middle Ages.
It liberated the mentality of humankind.
The End of Octoberis out April 28.
