It was inevitable, and there will surely be others. The Coronavirus pandemic, now in its third phase and wiping out Christmas, will surely feature as a backdrop to so many novels and movies.
There are rumours of these appearing all over the world but none, as far as I am aware, so far in Malta. This is the first one I am aware of.
The author is a veteran author, though this book does not tell us. Facebook, however, tells us that this former teacher of Maltese at a girls' grammar school is the author of 10 novels, two books of poetry and a book of short stories.
Some time ago I had reviewed L-istar tal-imghoddi about the Czech velvet revolution while another book is Il-hajja mqallba taz-Zija Rhoda. Another book I had reviewed is Vaganzi Sajfin.
This last book resembles the book under review in that the protagonists are absolutely normal persons coming from absolutely normal families. In this case, the novel highlights how the pandemic has turned upside down the lives of ordinary persons and families.
The novel is centred around a family whose head, now dead, used to be a sacristan. Of his three children, one left Malta and settled in Sheffield where he got married to a Maltese girl.
The story begins when this couple comes to Malta to celebrate the mother's 70th birthday. This was last March when the virus came to Malta. From this point onwards the storyline of the sacristan's family becomes entwined with the story of how the lives of ordinary Maltese became affected by the virus.
It's a story we have lived through - the insistence on social distancing, the deaths, the closing of society life, the huge uncertainty and the restrictions. We are still living in these circumstances but maybe we have become more used to the restrictions. And we are not out of the pandemic. If anything, the numbers the book mentions are puny compared to the numbers of these days.
Apart from the story of the sacristan's family, other persons come in view, all trying to live their already complicated lives under the shadow of the pandemic.
There are no extraordinary events taking place but the pandemic is extraordinary in itself.
Undoubtedly, those who lost loved ones and the victims themselves have far more tragic tales to tell. As we head into Christmas with no end in sight to the pandemic, this slim book records for future generations what our people passed through in the year of grace 2020.