On March 23, 2020, Washington state issued a stay-at-home order because of the spread of COVID-19, introducing a surreal period in our collective memory.
It is interesting to watch how and when historical events show up in literature as a means of exploring, documenting and remembering difficult times in our shared history. Six years post-pandemic, a number of talented authors have revisited the uncertainty and fear of that time, as well as paying tribute to stories of resilience.
Susan Straight’s 2025 novel, “Sacrament,” delves deep into the lives and sacrifices of ICU nurses whose tireless ministrations kept many alive and whose tender care was the only human connection comforting the sick and dying. Straight’s nurses live in sweltering donated trailers parked on a cul-de-sac near the hospital they call Our Lady. They sing to patients who are dying, comfort family members via text, mourn being separated from their own families, and worry about getting the virus themselves.
“Sacrament” is set in San Bernardino and Coachella Valley, where Straight has lived her entire life, and the real-life experiences of her Latino, Filipino, white, Native and mixed-race neighbors inform and breathe life into the characters of her nurses and patients. The result is an unforgettable cast of characters whose exhaustion will creep into your bones and whose commitment will inspire your heart.
“Day” by Michael Cunningham takes us across the country to New York City where Isabel, a glossy magazine photography editor, her husband Dan, a 40-something trying to resurrect a rock band that never quite made it, their two kids, and Isabel’s brother, Robbie, lead a mostly companionable existence. It’s 2019, and Robbie, who lives in the apartment upstairs, is recovering from his most recent breakup and procrastinates grading middle school essays by creating Instagram posts about the life of an imaginary dream man he calls Wolfe.
Isabel and Dan are drifting apart in the insidious way this can occur when parents have midlife crises, and the kids, five and ten years old, can sense something once solid is fracturing. When the COVID lockdown comes along and they are all cooped up together, it becomes clear that Robbie, vacationing in Iceland and unable to return home, has been the glue holding everything together. Cunningham makes you feel the claustrophobia of the forced intimacy and the ways each family member retreats into their secret, private thoughts.
Actress Julianne Moore reads the audiobook and does a remarkable job conveying the emotional state of all the characters, from 5-year-old Violet who is afraid for anyone to open windows lest the virus get in, to Dan’s naive dedication to song writing and belief that this comeback will bring him the rock star fame that previously eluded him; and maybe make Isabel interested in him again, or, if not Isabel, perhaps Robbie?
While these two new novels are the best that I’ve read so far at capturing this time in our history, honorable mention goes to Louise Erdrich’s 2021 novel, “The Sentence,” whose cast of characters centers around a Minneapolis bookstore (similar to Erdrich’s own bookstore, Birchbark Books) and the community’s response to both the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. Also, “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett where the return of Lara’s three daughters to the family orchard in Northern Michigan during the lockdown provides both the time and the intimacy to examine their own lives and learn some surprising things about their mother’s past.
For teens, “A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe” by Mahogany L. Browne approaches the pandemic via interconnected stories, poems and prose told in multiple teen voices that describe its impact on their NYC communities. A middle-grades novel “The Lost Year,” by Katherine Marsh, follows 13-year old Matthew. When his mother takes away his video game console, he fills the time helping his Ukrainian-born great-grandmother go through personal belongings, only to discover a long-hidden secret about her childhood in Stalin-ruled Soviet Ukraine.
Time travel back to the spring of 2020 with these and more titles set during the COVID-19 pandemic by visiting wcls.org and searching lists for COVID-19 in Literature.
Lisa Gresham is the collection services manager for the Whatcom County Library System, wcls.org.
(Originally published in Cascadia Daily News, Friday, March 27, 2026.)