Seven titles set during the COVID-19 pandemic

Bekah Waalkes is a writer and PhD candidate in English Literature at Tufts University. Her work has appeared in Real Life, Cleveland Review of Books, Bon Appétit, Longreads, and the Ploughshares blog, among others. She is an editorial intern at Electric Literature.

At Electric Lit Waalkes tagged seven "novels [that] refuse to recount lockdown on its own, instead thinking about what we learn about people and their breaking points, what the pandemic made

possible for people like us, and, of course, what it took away." One title on the list:

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Sentence follows a haunting: one woman, Tookie, who works at an indie bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted by the ghost of the store’s most annoying customer, Flora. But this haunting quickly becomes one of many—the novel begins on All Soul’s Day (November 1) in 2019, and ends on All Soul’s Day in 2020, covering one year of isolation, turmoil, and challenge. The book follows the COVID-19 pandemic as it slowly, then quickly, emerges, including ways the bookstore must try to survive, but it also follows the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests. Tookie, herself formerly incarcerated, explores the link between being sentenced and reading a sentence, reflecting on the ways books can liberate us—and the ways they can’t.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Sentence is among Aleksandra Hogendorf's seven favorite books set in bookstores.

--Marshal Zeringue