Overview

• The book, published by Riverhead this week, reframes Lockwood’s early‑pandemic illness as autofiction that tracks quarantine and its lingering fallout.
• Critics say it renders long‑Covid from the inside, depicting aphasia, hallucinations, migraines, amnesia and paranoia in an intimate register.
• The style is deliberately fragmented and associative, which some praise as vivid and others dismiss as confusing or self‑indulgent.
• Lockwood tells British GQ that fiction’s “refraction” was necessary to convey the experience’s strangeness more truthfully than a direct account.
• Multiple reviews note the narrative presumes familiarity with Lockwood’s voice and biography, making it likelier to resonate with existing fans.