Lawrence Wright’s ‘The Plague Year’ to release in June

NEW YORK — One of the first book-length inside accounts of the coronavirus pandemic will be coming out in June.

Lawrence Wright’s “The Plague Year,” which builds on a New Yorker story that ran earlier this month, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf on June 8. Wright told The Associated Press that he interviewed more than 100 people for the story, including such top government health officials as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.

“The Plague Year” will document what he calls “the shocking failure” of the U.S. to contain the virus, which has killed more than 400,000 people across the country.

“America was supposed to be the best positioned country in the world to handle the pandemic,” he said.

Knopf, which announced the book Wednesday, is calling it an “an all-encompassing account” covering everything from the virus’ origins to the development of vaccines and nature of the disease itself.

Wright won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and The Road to 9-11” and wrote a novel, “The End of October,” that was completed before the pandemic and in many ways anticipated it.

He is still working on his new book, which he expects will end with the incoming administration of President Joe Biden. He noted that Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20 was one year since the first COVID-19 case was reported in the U.S.

Hillel Italie, The Associated Press