What Just Happened

September 15, 2021
Sharp observations of a dizzying year. Agreeing to a request from the Los Angeles Times, critic, essayist, and mystery writer Finch began documenting his experiences during the Covid-19 lockdown beginning in March 2020, when the future seemed hardly imaginable. As a financially secure, Yale-educated White man living comfortably in LA, the author realized that he was far more fortunate than many Americans. An emergency room physician friend in New York made him deeply aware of Covid's assault on the city that had become the epicenter of the virus. During the height of the pandemic, Finch got out of the house for long walks, connected on Zoom, and occasionally met with a few friends for a socially distanced drink. "Life is simple," he reflects. "Don't go anywhere and be afraid." Although related with appealing candor, much of what Finch notes may well seem overly familiar to readers: a dearth of paper goods and hand sanitizer in the early days of quarantine; hopes of quickly containing the virus; alarming statistics from around the world; anger over the murder of George Floyd; sadness about the deaths of John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump's absurd remarks (an injection of bleach, anyone?) revealed "how things happened every day, sometimes every hour, that you would throw your body in front of a car to stop." As death numbers mounted, Finch realized that "anyone can find a story of a person that's almost like them dying." The narrative is freshest when the author hews closest to his own life: the childhood illness that left him immunocompromised; the consolations of smoking weed, listening to music (Taylor Swift is a favorite, the Beatles a happy rediscovery), reading and writing--and especially his tender remembrance of his grandmother, the minimalist artist Anne Truitt. His radiant portrait of Truitt shines as a transcendent ending to his chronicle of a dark year, when everything seemed to be "trembling at the edges." A spirited testimony to hard times.

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October 1, 2021
Finch's precise and stunning day-by-day chronicle of the COVID-19 pandemic brings back all the shock and bewilderment, fear and outrage, grim humor and stark revelations. In dispatches for the Los Angeles Times, this award-winning critic and author of a best-selling Victorian mystery series is nimbly incisive, scathing, and hilarious; his political analysis keen and prescient. From the abrupt isolation, empty grocery store shelves, and lack of protective equipment for health-care workers to Trump's deadly lies, the police murder of George Floyd, the subsequent protests for racial justice, the nail-biting election, and the ever-rising death toll, this edgy in-the-moment account is bracing in its connectivity and clarification. Finch's research into the history of Jim Crow exposes the roots of the January 6 insurrection, current voter suppression, and "how far outside democracy we've strayed." Resounding indictments alternate with personal disclosures as Finch listens to and critiques music, smokes pot, and shares the experiences of friends, including an ER doctor in New York. In radiant gratitude, Finch remembers his grandmother, the artist Annie Truitt. A forthright, sharp-witted, caring, and essential record of living through a tragic, transformative year.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 8, 2021
“Life simple: Don’t go anywhere and be afraid,” writes novelist and critic Finch (The Inheritance) in this perceptive chronicle of his experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. After he was commissioned in March 2020 by the Los Angeles Times to document his observations during lockdown, Finch logged the grief, hope, and desperation he encountered day by day as the pandemic took hold. From the start, his takes are remarkably prescient: “However serious this ends up, the virus is being politicized,” he notes on March 11. Readers will feel an intimate familiarity with the bewilderment that imbues his early observations, as he laments not being able to make certain foods because of scarcity issues (“Will we see canned peas again?” he half-jokingly asks) while simultaneously dealing with shock and frustration at the Trump administration’s resistance to “admit the full danger of the virus.” His writing inevitably dips into cynicism as the death toll rises, but plenty of humorous moments break through, including his hilarious roasts of Trump’s officials, such as “Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo (whom I think we have to take as nature’s last word on how closely a human can resemble a toad).” Even at its darkest, this serves as a moving testament to the resilience of humanity. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, the Book Group.

October 1, 2021

In March 2020, at the request of the Los Angeles Times, Finch began recording his daily thoughts on how his life and the lives of those around him were changing, addressing politics, protests, and pandemic but also those great escapes--Murakami's novels, anyone, or the Beatles? As he is an author par excellence--we owe him thanks for his Charles Lenox mystery series, the excellent literary novel The Last Enchantments, and his award-winning book criticism--the chronicle that resulted should be immediately satisfying.

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