Fourteen Days

Book excerpt: Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the pandemic, Fourteen Days is a dazzling, heartwarming novel with an unusual twist: each character has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice - from Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston to Dave Eggers and Celeste Ng. One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbours gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants - some of whom have barely spoken to each other - become real neighbours. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editor Margaret Atwood, Authors Guild president Douglas Preston, and a star-studded list of contributors create a beautiful ode to the people who couldn't get away from the city when the pandemic hit. A dazzling, heartwarming collection, Fourteen Days reveals how beneath the loss and suffering, some communities managed to become stronger.