This astonishing collection of journal entries is a testament to resilience in a world made up of shards of the past.
If a Roman citizen in 410 C.E. had kept a journal of everyday life and its fears, joys, and hopes, it would be a treasured historical document, especially when civilization has fallen apart.
In April 2023, John Rember began writing his third and final volume of Journal of the Plague Years. Convinced that we are living among ruins cultural, political, and spiritual, he focuses on finding agency in the only place it still exists: between individuals who treat each other with dignity and compassion.
The essays in Aftermath explore how cherished ways of living are being lost to artificial intelligence, a relentlessly warming climate, the imminent end of fossil fuels, and inhuman wars. But happiness is still possible, even when it must coexist with grief.
Marked by humor, honesty, and love, the three volumes of Journal of the Plague Years witness a time near the end of this country's history, and offer a primary source for historians of the future, should there be any.
