Her novel 56 Days begins with two lovers moving in together under the pressure of lockdown, and asks whether the perfect murder is precisely what lockdown allows.
As an established writer of intense psychological thrillers, Catherine Ryan Howard knew that crime thrives in situations where secrecy, fear and suspicion are already rife. The fearfulness of lockdown has also made it rich territory for crime writers. Howard’s 56 Days begins with two lovers moving in together and asks, is the perfect murder what lockdown allows? And Life Without Children, a collection of stories written by Roddy Doyle from one Dublin lockdown to the next, explores with curious glee the new bearings of our world and its linguistic quirks (in Dublin shops, people ask for “one and a half social distances of plywood”). Sarah Moss’s The Fell, written during the bleak hopelessness of the winter lockdown, features a self-isolating woman maddened by confinement. Burntcoat, which Sarah Hall began on the first day of the first spring lockdown, is about two lovers facing frightening new forms of intimacy in a plague-ravaged world. Smith folded the beginning of the pandemic into wider concerns this autumn sees the publication of a first wave of books written wholly in response to Covid-19. The elderly Iris reflects that the comparisons to the war made by the media are inappropriate, because “the pandemic is making walls and borders and passports as meaningless as nature knows they are”.
As detainee immigrants are released, lest they collectively die in prison, Smith asks if it will be an opportunity for a new kind of world. Summer includes speculations from Einstein alongside sections about the incarceration of “enemy aliens” on the Isle of Man in the second world war and ruminations on the pandemic recognisable from everyday life. In Smith’s vision, the pandemic only increases the fragmentation that characterises her almost alarmingly profuse narratives. They can now be enjoyed in relative solitude.Ali Smith’s novel Summer responds to the pandemic in real time. Now my neighborhood next to the Forum and Colosseum falls silent when the sun sets.” The Forum and the Colosseum, along with the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, are some of Rome’s most visited attractions. Rome-based writer Gillian McGuire says, “A few weeks ago I heard English, French and Dutch being spoken and the sound of suitcases below my window. “Florian has survived for a long time, and will continue!” Rome Alone “We will return more beautiful and stronger than before,” Ferronato says passionately.
But Venice is used to hardship and overcoming adverse situations. Although coronavirus regulations permit bars and restaurants to remain open until 6pm in the Veneto region, Ferronato explains, “We tried to resist but, unfortunately, with the new legal provisions the company does not currently have the resources to continue.”Īlthough the city desperately needed respite from the overwhelming tourist numbers, the contrast has been too stark. Caffè Florian, a Venetian institution that celebrated its 300th anniversary this year, has closed temporarily. But with so many livelihoods dependent on tourism, the city is also suffering greatly.
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