We’ve recently said goodbye to the longest year ever, and vaccines are rolling out (well, we’re still waiting in New Zealand). Covid-19 is part of our modern world, whether we like or not (not).
But does that mean we want Covid-19 in our fiction?
I recently elected not to read and review a dual timeline title set in 1820 and 2020. The story was obviously written and accepted for publication before Covid-19 had been discovered, and well before we all lived through the longest year in creation, 2020. the story centred on a teenage girl in England who had some unspecified bad thing happen that meant she didn’t get into university. Apparently, that was supposed to make readers sympathise with her.
Well, that plot didn’t fly with me.
The UK news in mid-2020 was full of stories of British teens who hadn’t been accepted into their university course of choice because end-of-year exams were cancelled and the grades they’d been assigned by the government algorithm weren’t good enough. As such, one fictional person not getting into university for an unknown mysterious reason didn’t ring true for me.
(The story has now been revised, given a new book description, and is now set in 1821 and 2021. I’m not sure that’s going to work any better … )
So are you interested in reading books that mention Covid and/or lockdown?
I’m in two minds on the question. On one hand, I’m not interested in reading books that directly mention Covid-19. On the other hand, I’m also not interested in reading books set in 2020 or 2021 that don’t mention Covid-19. I suspect contemporary fiction writers will be better placed to write a novel that is either set before 2020, or not set in a specific year.
I saw this question asked in a Facebook group recently. One author said she’d surveyed her Facebook group and newsletter list and had over 3,500 responses. the vast majority wanted to avoid any mention of Covid-19. Other authors agreed.
They said they read to escape.
Reading about an unpleasant current reality is not escape. Several commented that they’ve stopped watching TV shows that have woven Covid-19 into their ongoing storylines.
The other argument I’ve seen against mentioning Covid-19 or lockdowns is that we’re (unfortunately) still in the middle of the pandemic. We don’t know when or how it’s going to end. The rollout of the vaccines gives us hope life will return to something approaching normal sooner rather than later, but we don’t know how effective the vaccine will be, how long it lasts … We won’t know how this ends until it ends.
