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A review by atlevine
The End of October by Lawrence Wright
2.0
2.75/5.00
As we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought it would be interesting to check out Lawrence Wright's new novel about a deadly strain of influenza that sweeps the globe. I was a fan of The Cobra Event by Richard Preston, so I thought I'd give this medical thriller a try.
Unfortunately, this novel was all over the place and a total miss for me.
The End of October follows Henry, a (renowned microbiologist and epidemiologist) who practically stumbles upon a deadly new virus in Indonesia. The story follows him and his family as the virus spreads uncontrollably across the world. Wright explores the potential political, social, and economic consequences of a global pandemic that everyone is ill-prepared for (sound familiar?).
My biggest gripe was the lack of character development. I felt no connection to the main characters in the story. They all felt extremely flat, cold, and disposable. It is clear Wright struggled to bring his research to life in the form of a believable/interesting story. There were also perspectives that got a lot of page time but were inconsequential to the main story (Tildy???). It's a shame because I really enjoyed the non-fiction aspects of this book (even the political bits), but it just didn't translate to a fictional story very well.
I could have overlooked some of the novel's absurd plot holes if I were more invested in the characters' stories and survival, but I just didn't care.
Like really? One of the top epidemiologists in the WORLD was trapped in Saudi Arabia for months? Really? Henry decided to go back to work before he found his abandoned children? The relationship between Helen and Teddy was also bizarre, especially once Jill died. Henry was seemingly emotionless upon finding his dead wife buried in the yard (he showed more emotion for the dog???). It all felt very robotic. Like the characters were ONLY there to push along the non-fiction narrative that was running alongside the fictional story.
Important scenes were completely skipped over. One chapter Jill is fine, the next Helen is burying her in the backyard. The reader can assume Jill got sick from her mother in the nursing home, but it would have been less confusing and more impactful for us to read about her slowly dying from Kongoli. The ending is rushed as hell after what seems like hundreds of pages of exposition. We don't even get to see Henry reunite with his kids??? We know how they were able to find each other (Jill and her sister's phone) but OMG it was like Wright had this aversion to writing any kind of emotional scene.
I thought most of the flashbacks were ill-timed and confusing. Paired with the fact that there was literally no character development and important scenes were sometimes skipped, it was easy to get lost.
Overall, this book had an identity crisis. It was trying to be a fictional thriller when it really, clearly just wanted to be non-fiction about pandemics, and what a future pandemic could bring. I will give Wright a lot of credit in that aspect: the book was very well researched and he pretty accurately predicted a lot of the things that would happen if the world was thrown into a pandemic. I also LOVED the idea the ending was trying to portray (even if it was really rushed).
As we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought it would be interesting to check out Lawrence Wright's new novel about a deadly strain of influenza that sweeps the globe. I was a fan of The Cobra Event by Richard Preston, so I thought I'd give this medical thriller a try.
Unfortunately, this novel was all over the place and a total miss for me.
The End of October follows Henry, a (renowned microbiologist and epidemiologist) who practically stumbles upon a deadly new virus in Indonesia. The story follows him and his family as the virus spreads uncontrollably across the world. Wright explores the potential political, social, and economic consequences of a global pandemic that everyone is ill-prepared for (sound familiar?).
My biggest gripe was the lack of character development. I felt no connection to the main characters in the story. They all felt extremely flat, cold, and disposable. It is clear Wright struggled to bring his research to life in the form of a believable/interesting story. There were also perspectives that got a lot of page time but were inconsequential to the main story (Tildy???). It's a shame because I really enjoyed the non-fiction aspects of this book (even the political bits), but it just didn't translate to a fictional story very well.
I could have overlooked some of the novel's absurd plot holes if I were more invested in the characters' stories and survival, but I just didn't care.
Important scenes were completely skipped over. One chapter Jill is fine, the next Helen is burying her in the backyard. The reader can assume Jill got sick from her mother in the nursing home, but it would have been less confusing and more impactful for us to read about her slowly dying from Kongoli. The ending is rushed as hell after what seems like hundreds of pages of exposition. We don't even get to see Henry reunite with his kids??? We know how they were able to find each other (Jill and her sister's phone) but OMG it was like Wright had this aversion to writing any kind of emotional scene.
I thought most of the flashbacks were ill-timed and confusing. Paired with the fact that there was literally no character development and important scenes were sometimes skipped, it was easy to get lost.
Overall, this book had an identity crisis. It was trying to be a fictional thriller when it really, clearly just wanted to be non-fiction about pandemics, and what a future pandemic could bring. I will give Wright a lot of credit in that aspect: the book was very well researched and he pretty accurately predicted a lot of the things that would happen if the world was thrown into a pandemic. I also LOVED the idea the ending was trying to portray (even if it was really rushed).