COVID SEASONS: A NOVEL BY RICK GOELD
Covid Seasons is the story of three Arizona couples and how they cope, or don't cope, with the year from hell.
Julie, a model quality blonde, is a police lieutenant. She's got a "take charge" personality, a drinking problem, and she's sexually aggressive.
Mark, her mixed-race husband, is a lawyer on hiatus, a staunch Democrat, and, in affairs of the heart, pretty much clueless.
Sherri is an evangelical Christian who unequivocally supports Trump.
John, her husband, is a libertarian who holds grudges and plans to seek revenge against those who have wronged him.
Emjay (Maria Juanita) is an attractive Latina who is disillusioned with her childless marriage and has chosen to tolerate her husband's infidelity.
Scott,
her husband, is a silver-tongued businessman who has his roving eyes on Julie.
The story begins January 30th: they discuss Trump's impeachment, Kobe Bryant's tragic death, and this new virus, which has claimed its first victim in Arizona
The story ends January 6, 2021: Covid has killed members, family, and friends. The Survivors sit together, talking about the future. A few feet away, a group of Trump supporters, watching on TV, cheer as a mob storms the Capitol.
Some Survive, Some Don't
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Covid Seasons: A Review
Since 2014, two Arizona couples have met every Thursday morning to talk about the world and life in general. They have expanded the group to six, all neighbors in a small gated community in Scottsdale. They discuss and argue points and opinions while enjoying coffee at a local eatery. But this is late January 2020, and Covid is about to raise its ugly head, changing the world and the neighbor’s lives forever.
The group includes Mark, a lawyer who has lost his job, and his wife Julie, who is a cop. Scott and Emjay are realtors that own their own business and John is retired and mostly spends his days irritating his wife Sherri with his nasty smelling cigars. Each of them has opinions about what is happening in the world and they are not opposed to arguing with the others in the group. That being said, they look forward to the weekly get-togethers, especially with the lockdown.
Covid Seasons addresses politics and Covid, but more importantly, it brings to light the struggles and strengths of some relationships during what we hope to be the worst part of the virus. As time trudges on, emotions run high and relationships become strained. The fabric of society as well as families has changed like never before in modern times, bringing out the best and worst of individuals. Some can adapt, others cannot.
This fast-paced novel is interesting, funny and, at times, painfully honest. The characters are fiction, but the virus, the Presidential election and division of our nation was all too real. Clothed in the opinions of the characters, the issues seemed much less jarring than watching on the nightly news. Secrets that may or may not have been a byproduct of the lockdown are exposed. Some rifts can and will be mended, others will not.
This is the first book I have read by Rick Goeld. He is the author of Searching for Steely Dan and Sex, Lies, and Soybeans as well as People of Windsor Mountain, a work of non-fiction. If you are a fan of Tim Dorsey’s writing, you will enjoy Covid Seasons. This book contains explicit behavior as well as adult language,
DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: I have a material connection because I received a review copy for free from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for a fair and honest review.
… Laura Hartman, WriteKnit (Copyright © 2021)
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Covid Seasons: Another Review
COVID SEASONS may sound like nonfiction, but it's a novel that embraces the special seasons of challenge to heart and mind that began in 2020. It contrasts the lives of three very different couples—an attractive blonde professional policewoman married to a staid lawyer to an evangelical Trumper whose husband is set for revenge and a Latina woman whose husband has his eye on another—which are in upheaval overnight, providing an absorbing, familiar scenario of survival.
Events open in late January with a mysterious illness and move through a "winter of blissful ignorance" when Covid-19 was still off the radar of most Americans. Goeld's focus on building the lives and characters of each couple, then injecting the backdrop of Covid and its influences on each, creates a thought-provoking set of scenarios which operate on social, political, and psychological levels alike.
It's no small feat to juxtapose such different lives against the evolving challenges and nature of Covid, but this is exactly what happened in the real world, and why the shifting nature of reality becomes such an essential ingredient in this novel. As each couple and the individuals within it experience sea changes to their belief systems, brought about by Covid, readers gain a fine set of insights into the disease's more insidious impacts beyond physical survival alone.
The influence of health on belief systems, relationships, perceptions of social and political forces, and its reflection both in society and in these couples comes to life. The plot winds through the choices and consequences each individual makes in the face of not just a life-threatening, but a life-changing disease. Nothing is left out of this bigger picture, whether it be news about China, illegal immigrants, or federal and state conflicts over decision-making processes and regulations.
The result will be more than familiar to anyone living in these times, but will prove an astute revelation that captures the real disturbing tides of overnight change for those who will read the story a few years from now. For modern audiences already well familiar with Covid's events, Covid Seasons offers the opportunity to reconsider the foundations of truth, lies, and the kinds of distancing that take place not just for health reasons, but emotional self-protection.
The novel's careful blend of medical and political conundrums and its stories of loss, imploding relationships, and change will keep its audience reading, wondering, and involved as each character grasps revised truths and survival tactics alike.
… D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
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