Viral Underclass($18.63Value)

Description

**LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION** **LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALS FOR EXCELLENCE** **WINNER OF THE 2022 POZ AWARD FOR BEST IN LITERATURE** *Sarah Schulman named The Viral Underclass one of the Best Books of the 21st Century for the New York Times* "An irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the barbarities of class...readers are gifted that most precious of things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the world." ―Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society. Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone. Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings. In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow , The Viral Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing the fraught relationship between privilege and survival. **One of Kirkus Reviews ' Best Nonfiction Books of 2022** **One of them 's 23 Favorite LGBTQ+ Books of 2022** **One of Vulture's Best Epidemiology Books** **One of Publishers Weekly 's Top 10 Politics & Current Events books for Fall 2022** **One of USA Today 's 5 Must-Read New Books** **One of The Stacks Best Books of 2022** **One of The New York Times Paperback Row Editor's Choice Picks** "Steven Thrasher has written the book we urgently need. Putting a compelling and human face on the millions of people affected by the course viruses like HIV and Covid take in the human population, he shows us how race, class, gender, and sexuality combine to help some survive pandemics and even profit from them, while others experience pandemic through their bodies in the form of illness, death, death of loved ones, shame, stigma, and financial insecurity. His analysis of the viral underclass should be required reading for everyone concerned with transforming unequal access to health care in a world where pandemic heightens the brutality of inequality." ―Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop and What Truth Sounds Like "A genre-defying work of journalism, memoir, and cultural critique, The Viral Underclass is underpinned by a theoretical model for understanding why certain populations are in consistently more danger of getting sick. It also reveals how deeply Dr. Steven W. Thrasher, a journalist and professor at Northwestern University, believes in community care and mutual aid, in the interconnectedness of living beings, and the importance of acknowledging it. Really, though, this is a book about people and the way they care for one another in the face of governmental and social neglect." ―Ilana Masad, for them "The perfect book for this moment in time. Using his years of studying the effects of the HIV epidemic, Thrasher shows how viral epidemics expose the flaws in the modern American social system in the forms of racism, homophobia, classism, and ableism. Combining years of research with the personal stories of people living with these diseases or fighting for justice for those who are, this book speaks perfectly to the intersection of virology and activism." ― Vulture , " 9 Great Books About Navigating Viruses Throughout History" "The pandemic brought America’s health inequities into stark relief, but The Viral Underclass illustrates that the problem isn’t new, and that it is embedded more deeply than many of us realize… Thrasher, a gay Black man, brings figures from the viral underclass to life in this engaging, enraging read." ―The Boston Globe "At once precise and sweeping, rigorous and inviting, The Viral Underclass fearlessly crosses the policed borders of academic disciplines and literary forms, creating an irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the barbarities of class. Through the sheer force of his story telling, Thrasher challenges us to abandon our fatal illusions of separateness in favor of an embrace of our place in a collective entanglement of bodies. Readers are gifted that most precious of things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the world." ―Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of This Change