I can certainly understand the idea of moving on past a tragedy, and it seems like part of the world is making motions towards normality after COVID-19, but it is not too soon to take a hard look at what things went wrong in response to the pandemic. Some books look at political missteps – this book looks at how some people took advantage of public money and a streamlined government response in order to enrich themselves.
The writer is a journalist with ProPublica, and his and his colleagues’ actions show the important role that journalism still plays. Parts of the book were fascinating in just learning about how journalists approach such a huge and fast-moving topic. The writer uses humor and an accessible writing style to really bring home the details of these scams and what went wrong.
There is plenty of blame to go around, and reading this is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes disgusting, and very rarely, hopeful. Thankfully the author uses humor throughout, which helps to sweeten the bitter topic.
I wonder if political dialogue in the future will be up to the task of analyzing these serious faults – or are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes in the future?
Next I’m reading Altai by Wu Ming.
