Why These 20th Century Classics Belong On Your Pandemic Reading List

Reading for quarantined times: hard-core books and hard spirits will get us through!

I’m not much of a gambler, but I’m betting that the crocuses will come out of hibernation before we come out of quarantine. It’s possible that’s already happened: I wouldn’t know because I’ve been inside for a week.

And, it’s hoped, so have you.

So, if you’ve been heeding Dr. Anthony Fauci’s advice, here’s your reward: part two of “Reading for Quarantined Times.” Part one last week covered classic 18th- and 19th-century chronicles of plague and pestilence. This survey spans 1939 to 1995—from the Spanish Flu to biological warfare. (And, with so many excellent recommendations, a third installment is forthcoming, ‘cause based on current trend predictions from medical experts, we’re in this for the long haul, so you’re going to need something more than Netflix and chill.)

As before, I turned to Facebook friends for wine recommendations, and it turns out they’re up on their literary thrillers, too. I also noticed going into the second week of our isolation, there’s been more mention of booze: As one contributor said, “these times call for a stiff drink.”

So with a hat tip to my online hive, I present 20th-century pandemic page turners and pairings.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter (1939)

Plot: Set in Denver, this story narrates the relationship between a journalist and a soldier during the 1918 influenza epidemic. Events in Porter’s life informed the story: She lived in Denver, wrote for the Rocky Mountain News and contracted influenza. One account of her personal history (which also included bouts of tuberculosis and bronchitis) reports the hospital into which she was admitted was so overcrowded that she was left on a hallway gurney for nine days with a fever of 105. Well, thank goodness we have much better healthcare in the U.S. now.

Wine: Food & Wine executive editor Ray Isle, who recommended Porter’s classic, says, “Since Porter mentions people passing hooch under the table in flasks in her story (even though the Spanish Flu epidemic predates Prohibition), maybe whiskey is a more apropos choice than wine in this case. Plus Colorado has a number of terrific distilleries. Stranahan’s and Laws Whiskey House are both excellent and based right in Denver, where [the story] is set.”

Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939)

Plot: Holler if you read this in high school and know all the Cliff Notes biblical allegories! Known for his realism, Steinbeck’s great book about the Great Depression combines “sympathetic humor and keen social perception” (thus spoke the Pulitzer Prize committee). The Joads’ journey from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl to California’s agricultural valley wasn’t driven by a pandemic, but they were, indeed, plagued by troubles on the road. Thank goodness for Ma Joad.

Wine: The Dust Bowl destroyed Oklahoma’s wine industry, but there’s been a small  inter-state revival of the industry. You might be better served with California Zinfandel from the Central Coast where the Joads landed, says wine and spirit radio personality Ziggy Eschliman, who recommended Steinbeck’s classic. “Zin is a no-nonsense red that matches the grit of the Joad family—sturdy with a long-lasting finish,” she says.

I Am Legend, Richard Matheson (1954)

Plot: An Army virologist seeks a cure for the plague from which he’s emerged. Rather than sheltering in place, he roams around, encountering bloodthirsty mutants (ew, as David Rose would say). A 2007 film adaptation starred Will Smith, who has recently said he feels “responsible for a lot of the misinformation” about the current virus. I say the current White House occupant has him trumped on that.

Wine: James Tidwell MS recommended the book, noting, “Like many of us at the moment, Robert Neville is confined following a worldwide pandemic. He lives amongst cultural signifiers of the past while vacillating between despair and hope [and] one of the great cultural signifies of the wine world—and one that might help assuage despair—is aged red Burgundy.”

The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton (1969)

Plot: This 50-year-old techno-thriller spawned the genre, which has since released hundreds of similar species (I know, go ahead and groan!) Here, a government satellite returns to earth and crashes in Arizona, releasing deadly extraterrestrial microorganism. The rescue projects have cool code names like Scoop and Wildfire. The green throbbing highly virulent alien is named Andromeda. The book ends with a cliff hanger and then there’s a sequel. Because you were not nervous enough, right?

Wine: Arizona wineries cultivate French and Italian varieties grown on high-altitude plateaus. You can go old and new school here: Page Springs Cellars, Arizona Stronghold Vineyards and Caduceus Cellars have hipster cred. Wines from the pioneering Callaghan Vineyards have been served in the pre-Trump White House. (Read all about them here.)

The Stand, Stephen King (1978)

Plot: The breakout of a lethal and contagious strain of influenza sparks a wide-spreading breakdown of society. Social-distance disobedience kills off more than 99% of the world’s population (hey, pandemic dissidents, take note and stay home, ya dingbats!) But then a motley group—a psychic, sociology professor, “Mother Abigail,” and a deaf-mute deputy—forms a new society only to be challenged by another society of misfits, this one supernaturally conceived by a madman messiah. #itscomplicated.

Wine: The action is all over the place, but King is from Maine, which is famous for fruit wines. And since this plot is a little fruity …

The Eyes of Darkness, Dean Koontz (1981)

Plot: A grieving mother tries to find out what happened to her son a year after he died on a camping trip. The book is getting renewed attention for a somewhat prescient description of current events caused by a deadly respiratory virus called “Wuhan 400.”

Wine: Carrie Lyn Strong, Manhattan’s Casa Lever’s wine director, suggests Maydie Tannat from Gascony. “Similar to port, with fig and blackberry funky sweetness,” she says—a wine as dark and dramatic as the book. There’s a play on words, she says: when importer Eric Dubourg, introduced it to her, he cautioned, ‘you have to be careful if you drink it because you May Die!’ ”

The Great Hunger, Cecil Woodham-Smith (1992)

Plot: Apocalyptic enough to include in the roundup, Ireland’s 1840s potato famine killed more than 1 million people and fueled an early wave of emigration to the U.S., a move that the Mr. Potato Head in charge wouldn’t likely allow in these times. “Widely accepted as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative accounts,” says the Transceltic blog. Sharp-eyed Outlander fans will pick up the prescient reference in season two (Chapter 33 in the books).

Wine: No question: just pick up a bottle of Jameson’s and call it a day. Drink it neat.

The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, Richard Preston (1994)

Plot: Inspired by the author’s 1992 New Yorker article “Crisis in the Hot Zone,” this nonfiction thriller chronicles the origins and impacts of rare viruses, chiefly the exotic Biosafety Level 4 agents (Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Marburg virus and Ravn virus) that have no known prophylactic measures, treatments or cures. (The author is the only non doctor to have been award by the Centers for Disease Control as a “Champion of Prevention.”)

Wine: Preston describes the Reston virus, so-named for the quarantine facility in Reston, Va., at which it was found. That brings us to the Virginia winelands. Barboursville, one of the best, has historic ties to Thomas Jefferson; its Octagon Bordeaux-blend is top of the line. Another politically connected estate, Trump Winery, is considerably less storied. Surprisingly, they do not make orange wine.  

Blindness, Jose Saramago (1995)

Plot: An unnamed city is hit by an unexplained epidemic of “white blindness,” which spares no one and causes a swift social breakdown. The blinded population is quarantined in an empty asylum, which escalates the breakdown, paralleling the outside societal chaos. One reviewer called the book “a magnificent parable of loss and disorientation … and humanity’s ultimately exhilarating spirit.” Characters include “the old man with the black eye patch, the boy with the squint, the girl with the dark glasses.”

Wine: Saramago is Portuguese so, New York-based wine educator Ellisa Cooper who recommended the book, goes with a Touriga Franca-driven Tinto from Antonio Lopes Ribeiro in the Douro Valley. His biodynamic farming practices, she says, “make this a winery that will survive and thrive in our new, better world ahead.”