A propulsive and prophetic thriller, Jim Shepard's Phase Six is a devastating look at an all-too-familiar, near-future pandemic. Eleven-year-old Aleq and his best friend love exploring the edges of their isolated small town on the coast of Greenland. But when they come back sick from playing near a mining site, their flu-like symptoms are just the beginning. Soon, the mysterious and vastly contagious illness sweeps through the town, killing everyone Aleq knows, and he is transferred to a CDC facility where two women, Jeannine and Danice, are leading the research team. But the contagion is spreading faster than they can contain it, and the world has learned no lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic that occurred not long ago.
Haunting and sparse, Shepard's (The Book of Aron) prose stays crisp and readable, even as it details an uncannily recognizable story of mass panic, unmanageable death and psychologized guilt. The novel's opening, which focuses on the quiet life of two adventurous boys in a small town, is infused with an atmosphere of fast-growing catastrophe. These opening pages movingly convey a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. And while the gripping plot moves at a fast pace, this atmosphere pervades the story with a chilly self-awareness. The predictability of the spread and the inevitability of its outcomes are reminders that the true villain of this story is not Covid-19 or the mysterious illness that seems to spread as easily as fear itself. Instead, readers begin to realize, as Jeannie does before a breakup, "Maybe the problem is me." --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor