Book of the week: The Premonition by Michael Lewis
Lewis once again turns a complex subject into ‘a fluid intellectual thriller’
In October 2019, health security experts published the Global Health Security Index, a list of countries best placed to deal with a pandemic. The US was number one. So why have more than 600,000 of its citizens died from Covid-19? The answer, said Steven Poole in The Daily Telegraph, is that although the US had a plan, no one dared use it until it was too late.
This is the tragedy explored by Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker and The Big Short, who once again turns a complex subject into “a fluid intellectual thriller”. Packed with fascinating facts and personal angles, The Premonition follows a gang of maverick scientists who designed a detailed response to an imagined outbreak – only to find it ignored at the critical moment.Trump’s “cabal of know-nothing cronies” were partly to blame, but Lewis reserves his real fury for the obtuse scientific bureaucrats who were perpetually demanding more evidence.
It was George W. Bush who decided that the US needed a pandemic plan, said Christina Patterson in The Sunday Times. After reading a book on Spanish flu, he funded a team which came up with a revolutionary approach involving social distancing and school closures. But, fatally, those scientists had been dispersed by the time Covid-19 arrived. This “gripping” book details the inertia and wilful blindness of the government, and brings those involved vividly to life. The descriptions are “punchy”, the dialogue is snappy: “Lewis is a master of his form.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What makes the book so refreshing is that it ignores the obvious Covid narrative, said Frieda Klotz in The Irish Independent. Instead of starting in Wuhan, it burrows back into the lives of important players in the US response.
First up is 13-year-old Laura Glass, who asked her scientist father to help with her school project on the Black Death by creating a computer programme to plot a disease’s path through society; this would become key to the lockdown strategy the government finally embraced.
As in his previous books, Lewis’s “propulsive” narrative pits a handful of unheralded individuals against a monolithic system, said Mark O’Connell in The Guardian. The main antagonist here is the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, damningly portrayed as an organisation in which institutional caution amounts to a form of recklessness.
It’s a gripping book with a powerful message – even if it does sometimes read less “like a work of narrative journalism than an exceptionally vivid script treatment” for the inevitable movie adaptation.
Allen Lane 320pp £25; The Week Bookshop £19.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'The House under GOP rule has become a hostile workplace'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
The Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal is about more than bad bets
In The Spotlight The firestorm surrounding one of baseball's biggest stars threatens to upend a generational legacy and professional sports at large
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Feds raid Diddy homes in alleged sex trafficking case
Speed Read Homeland Security raided the properties of hip hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
6 inviting homes with rental units
Feature Featuring a restored Victorian home in Illinois and ocean-view windows in Nova Scotia
By The Week Staff Published
-
Keith O'Brien's 6 must-read books about significant moments in sports history
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Laura Hillenbrand, Jonathan Eig and more
By The Week US Published
-
Puglia's rich medieval heritage
The Week Recommends Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II built 'the most flawless of all medieval European castles' in the southern Italian region
By The Week UK Published
-
Recipe: chickpea, cavolo nero and harissa stew
The Week Recommends Tinned tomatoes are warmed by harissa paste and become the base for a versatile stew
By The Week UK Published
-
A Very Private School: a 'moving, if sadly familiar' story from Charles Spencer
The Week Recommends Memoir of the privately educated boarder makes for 'horrific reading'
By The Week UK Published
-
Tropical Modernism: Architecture & Independence – rise and fall of unique design
the week recommends A 'nuanced' and 'scholarly' examination of European architecture across the 'late British empire'
By The Week UK Published
-
Harry Clarke: an 'effortlessly engrossing' one-man play
The Week Recommends Billy Crudup is 'hypnotic' but cannot 'paper over the defects'
By The Week UK Published
-
Lauren Oyler's favorite collection of essays that will leave you deep in thought
Feature The author recommends works by Elif Batuman, Mark Greif, and more
By The Week US Published