Reply To: Book 17: What are some other examples of reinventions and second chances in this novel?
Three Pines hasn’t been spared from the COVID pandemic. In her notes, Louise considered ignoring the COVID pandemic but she couldn’t. Instead she projected to the time after when life was struggling to return to normal in a world forever changed. With the vaccine newly developed, the public will have a second chance to get back to their lives even though the pandemic was a horrible, haunting memory of the refrigerated morgue trucks carrying away the dead.
In Book Club Discussion 2 of this book, Cheryl Jette Poulin wrote, “There was also a fear campaign during the pandemic about COVID vaccines being dangerous. That seemed ridiculous too, but many people died because they believed it.”
Reinventions emerge as the anti-vaccine movement is now a modern political force. Greater funds enable anti-vaccine groups to expand their public reach, sue federal agencies and organize like-minded activists at the state level, as well as expand their reach abroad. Shouted opinions can influence masses of people, who latch onto unscientific ideas that touch some buried anger or prejudice in them.
“They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.” Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”