I started my second novel, The Emilys, with a single sentence: “What did I love about going to get the vaccine?” All I knew was that a mom was leaving her house before dawn. I knew she was so happy to walk the streets of her small town alone in the darkness without cooking cereal or warming milk or finding the right stuffy. I knew that when she arrived downtown, a line had already formed in front of the CVS, circling the block. She joined the end of the line in front of the yarn store.Article continues after advertisement
I wrote this in 2019, before we all started waiting for the COVID-19 vaccine I’d eventually get at that same CVS. As my character waited, the mood was joyful. Neighbors chatted, shared muffins. But then word spread that there wasn’t enough vaccine for everyone. And protesters appeared, urging people to avoid the shot.
Like a floral calendar, every novel records what we’re able to imagine of this time of terror and delusion and longing.
I didn’t predict the pandemic. The vaccine I imagined was for a tick-borne illness, not a virus. I was writing myself a fantasy, a cure. I live in rural Massachusetts and ticks are everywhere in the grass, crawling up our legs, nestling in our hair. I wanted them in a book, too, climbing through its pages. I love to be out in the woods, and I’d grown scared to be out in the woods. Desire and fear. That seemed like a good enough start for a novel.
