Wright, L: End of October

“Wright’s awesome imagination is matched by his authenticity. The End of October is prescient and stunning.” — Tom Hanks “Wright applies the magisterial force of his reporting skills into spinning a novel of pestilence, war, and social collapse that, given the current pandemic, cuts exceedingly close to the bone. . . . He works into the book accounts of historical epidemics, descriptions of Russian cyber- and bio-warfare capabilities, the story of the 1803 attempt to save the New World from small pox, and other curious nonfiction set pieces. . . . Despite the nonfiction scaffolding, this is a novel and a good one. The main plot line centers on an epidemiologist, his family and his Odysseus-like return home from the biological battleground.” —Douglas Preston, The New York Times Book Review “A fast-paced thriller with big, sweeping, made-for-the-adapted-screenplay action sequences . . . The End of October is the perfect novel for a long airplane flight or a beach chair. Provided, of course, our real-life leaders are a bit more effective than Wright’s fictional ones, and we’re all once again able to encounter either of those this year.” —Scott Detrow, NPR “A swift and all-too-convincing chronicle of science, espionage, action and speculation that moves from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to the U.S. as it eerily evokes real-life current events. Deeply rooted in factual research, The End of October may well prove the most frightening novel of the year.” —Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal “What makes The End of October compelling to read right now is that Wright researched the hell out of what kind of infrastructure the US would need to survive a pandemic. He concluded that we did not have it. And then he drew on his formidable knowledge of domestic and international politics to imagine what would ensue.” —Constance Grady, Vox “To say that Wright’s new novel [is] prescient would be an understatement. This is the novel as Nostradamus . . . I couldn’t stop reading it . . . If the world reads this today, we might be able to avoid Wright’s tomorrow.” —Barry Hertz, The Globe and Mail “A thriller for our times . . . Like all good thrillers, The End of October diverts us from the real world while keeping a firm base there, letting us imagine not only disaster but the ways out of it.” —Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times “Some works of fiction seem ripped from the headlines. Others anticipate the news, providing a prophetic vision of our future. Lawrence Wright's new novel, The End of October, belongs in the rare second category.” —Daniel Burke, CNN “Reading the book now, amid a pandemic that has exposed the terrifying fragility of our social structures and political institutions, is a deeply unnerving experience.” —Lila Shapiro, Vulture “[Wright’s] book shows that our new reality, a surprise and a shock to most of us, is actually following a script written far in advance, with all the words and phrases that we never used six weeks ago—attack rate, viral load, cytokine storm—now part of our everyday speech . . . The prescience of The End of October is undeniable . . . Wright is as amiable a tour guide as you could hope for through the darkest terrain of recent history.” —Christian Lorentzen, Air Mail “As a distinguished journalist and author of several highly successful factual books, Wright approached this just as he would any other journalistic assignment, carrying out detailed research and preparation. As he went from expert to expert he heard clear warnings that something like the coronavirus would happen. It was a question not so much of 'if' but 'when,' and crucially, many asked how prepared governments would be to cope with it . . . Is truth stranger than fiction, as the American writer Mark Twain once suggested? Now we all have a chance to judge for ourselves.” —Jonathan Marcus, BBC “So uncannily timed that any moment now some conspiracy theorist will tweet that our real-life pandemic is a hoax dreamed up by Wright’s publicist.” — Texas Monthly “As captivating as it is disorienting to step Alice-like into Wright’s vision of an influenza-ridden planet . . . Even taken as speculative fiction, the author approaches his subject with gravity befitting the stakes . . . Throughout, Wright keeps the various threads pulled taut—medicine; military matters, international intrigue, economics . . . There is real romance at the heart of The End of October, too, and faced with heartache triggered by the daily news, it brought tears to my eyes.” —Dan Oko, The Texas Observer “Harrowing . . . Wright is excellent at gracefully working the science of viruses into the narrative . . . The second half is almost pure action—pure; heart-stopping action . . . This book will wake you up, and keep you awake.” —Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune “Terrific . . . A gripping ride . . . Because Wright is a researcher at heart, the attention to detail in the book—medical; microbiological, epidemiological—is more informative than the hundreds of