As New York becomes the world’s hardest-hit city by the coronavirus, best-selling author and former New York Times columnist Laura Pedersen reports on how the populace is turned upside-down. Practically overnight millions of people went from living according to facts and figures to being at the mercy of fever and fate. It’s Come to This chronicles the pandemic year as it unfolded, with every week bringing a new set of seemingly impossible challenges and contradictions. Pedersen explains how people became more interested in baby wipes than babies, and in board games over boardrooms, along with many other pandemic conundrums and curiosities, such as how the expressions “going viral” and “pass the Corona” would never sound the same.
All proceeds go to Monday Night Hospitality and Friday Soup Kitchen at All Souls NYC.
“A newsreel of 2020 that viscerally and angrily captures the tragedy, confusion, and communal anxiety of the years from an author who lived in one of the country’s first virus epicenters…revisited with a cathartic burst of articulate, biting political commentary.” —Kirkus
“With equal measure of lively wit and solemnity, former New York Times columnist Laura Pedersen powerfully recalls the unprecedented events of the Covid-19 pandemic…It’s Come to This is a must read for anyone trying to make sense of our tumultuous year.” —BlueInk Review (starred review)
“Pedersen’s writing is conversational, but with occasional breathtaking lines. In response to the common refrain in the early days of the pandemic that we’re all in this together, she writes “We were in the same tempest, but very different boats—from rafts and rowboats to yachts and speedboats.”… It’s Come to This is an ideal pandemic diary; it captures the changes and strangeness brought about by Covid-19.” —Foreword Reviews
“She sums up a world gone haywire with enticing depth and wry humor, reminding readers of the “feral swine bomb” that hit the news just before election day, and relishing the marvelously obscene handwritten sign a liquor store posted establishing new rules for its customers. Pedersen offers readers a clear-eyed, cathartic recap of a devastating time.” —BookLife Reviews