‘Will you write letters with me, back and forth, for the duration of this virus?’

When Covid-19 isolated us all in March 2020, C and R—old friends, parents of young children, academics, and writers—turned to each other.

In 100 intensely vulnerable letters, C and R found their way through family estrangement, tense racial dynamics, gender transitions, chronic pain, dramatic career changes, and activist campaigns. Though both continued to mask and take precautions long after the world returned to ‘normal’, they were often pained by each other’s choices. Nonetheless, they always returned to the page, enacting what R calls durational performance art. The resulting book is a deeply personal, fiercely political roller coaster that plunges from the lockdowns, into social ambivalence, and finally through the long, politically manufactured ‘end’ of the pandemic.

The End Doesn’t Happen All at Once is an unusual kind of Covid book: it recasts the pandemic, in the words of Arundhati Roy, as a possible ‘portal’ into a different world. Conscious of their privileged status as vaccinated Americans, the writers examine global political realities: from Narendra Modi’s announcement of the March 2020 lockdown in India and the ensuing chaos; to the Trumpists’ attack on the US Capitol Building in 2021; from the systemic collapse in India, to the US government’s failures around racism, healthcare, gun violence, abortion laws, and the climate crisis.

These letters serve as both historical document and activist call, and above all, an inspiring testament to the power of friendship to give us the courage to change. Even as it documents some of the world’s darkest times, the book brims with hope for humanity at large.