A World Out of Reach

“Here diverse contributors, from Zimbabwe to Rikers to Yale itself, discuss their fear for loved ones, their adjustment to new conditions, and their research into historical precedents (AIDS) or structural inequalities behind the pandemic.”—Alexander Wells, Exberliner

“If only our response to the pandemic on other fronts could have been as speedy and potent as this literary one.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This absorbing and impressive gathering—broad in cultural and geographic range—beautifully integrates the immediate with long-range views. This is a special collection.”—Langdon Hammer, Yale University

“A World Out of Reach is a necessary and illuminating archive. . . . Invaluable and absorbing.”—Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning

"'Who are we—who were we—in the pandemic?' Meghan O'Rourke asks in the introduction to this remarkable new anthology. A World Out of Reach is an astonishing look at the early months of COVID-19.”—Jess Row, author of White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination
 

“This book will be valuable for decades to come for anyone who wants to study, analyze, or simply contemplate what happened to America and the world in 2020.”—Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
 

“We are still making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic. A World Out of Reach gives us a path towards understanding by offering direction from diverse domains: personal vignettes, poetry, law, public health and history. This multicultural compendium is unflinching in depicting what we face while giving hope that the human spirit is resilient and determined.”—Jerome Groopman, M. D., Harvard Medical School, author of The Measure of Our Days