Geraldine Brooks | Historical Fiction

I read Year of Wonders in 2020, right when Covid was in full swing. The book concerns how one English countryside village dealt with the 1666 plague. The book was published in 2001-02, but it depicted exactly what was going on with Covid in 2020. There were many similarities, such as all the virulent falsehoods freely floated.

The following quote was written about the same time the book was published. Year of Wonders was on both the New York Times' and Washington Post’s Notable List.

“Write what you know. Every guide for the aspiring author advises this. Because I live in a long-settled rural place, I know certain things. I know the feel of a newborn lamb’s damp, tight-curled fleece and the sharp sound a well-bucket chain makes as it scrapes on stone. But more than these material things, I know the feelings that flourish in small communities. And I know other kinds of emotional truths that I believe apply across the centuries.” (July 2001)