A Novel Virus, Indeed
by Sallie Showalter,
Georgetown, KY
On March 2, I released my first novel, Next Train Out (murkypress.com). I had spent a good amount of time the previous month planning a rather ambitious book launch party at the site of one of the pivotal scenes in the story: a historic train station, now a popular restaurant. We had arranged for appropriate period music, period food, a video of the places and people that crowd the novel. Social media posts from the restaurant, the musicians, and folks in that community had created a buzz. It was all coming together better than I had hoped.
And then you know what happened.
Now, I am an avowed introvert. I smiled knowingly at every line of Charles Davenport Jr.’s eloquent embrace of social distancing (“Sign Me Up for Perpetual ‘Social Distancing Perpetually’”). In general, I tend not to enjoy gatherings of more than four people. But I was really, really looking forward to this event—just like Janice Luckey’s granddaughter was eagerly anticipating her sixth birthday party (“Horse Dream Deferred”).
Granted, at 60, I should be better equipped to handle a little setback. I’m not proud to admit that I sulked quietly for two days.
In truth, my reaction was an embarrassment amid the sacrifices and heartache and fear and loss that millions of Americans—and people worldwide—are feeling during this pandemic. I have already lost a former colleague to COVID-19. Many of my family and friends are in the vulnerable age group with underlying health conditions that put them at increased risk. I am in awe of the work that medical staff, grocery cashiers, transportation workers, delivery people, and teachers are doing to get us through this crisis.
Meanwhile, all I am asked to do is stay home. To paraphrase comedian George Carlin when he talked about a child’s response to being sent to his room, “Cool! That’s where all my stuff is!” I am currently one of the lucky ones, healthy in my comfortable retreat.
But as I had occasion to talk with people about the novel over the phone, it became clear that a story set in the first half of the twentieth century was no longer just a tale of a long ago past that our parents or grandparents may have described to us in first-person narratives. The struggles of that era are slowly, frighteningly, becoming our struggles. Readers of the book are experiencing anxiety as they encounter references to the 1918 flu pandemic, the Great Depression, and rationing during World War II.
As I was writing, the narrative felt like a window into another time and a very different world. Now elements feel like a reflection of our current situation—or perhaps a warning of where we are headed.
But that timelessness, that ability to get people to feel what it was like to be someone else, someplace else, is what a novel is designed to invoke. Perhaps it’s my good fortune that the book will now get to speak for itself, without the flashy trappings of a celebratory soirée.
Copyright 2020, Sallie Showalter