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It was a tough year.

A pandemic. Wildfires. Protests.

Life changed for all of us in 2020 In an unprecedented year, the world faced a threat that upended life as we knew it.  Heroes emerged. Leaders fumbled. Cultures clashed. 

These are not those stories. 

These are the stories of ordinary people living in extraordinary times: nurses, teachers, parents, children. Stories that show what it was like to work on the COVID response unit; to watch your favorite hiking trail be consumed by flames; to walk in the rubble of a catastrophic explosion.

Hindsight is a collection of untold stories written by everyday people — nurses, doctors, teachers, students, artists — a time capsule of 2020 that bears witness to tragedy and the heart of humanity.

Excerpts

“My mother had died five years ago. I knew I’d feel her absence when I was holding my daughter in my arms, but now her lack was sharp and frightening. No one in our locked-down household knew what we were doing. We didn’t know what it meant when she sighed or moaned or cried, we didn’t know how to hold her or feed her. I remembered the breathless, awestruck feeling I had when I first took the test and saw the faint blue line and felt suddenly responsible for a life. She needed me, and the world was falling apart.”

— Blair Hurley, “Postpartum”

  • “The entries from people of all ages all around the world are deeply personal and document not just a year of COVID, but the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, devastating wildfires on the West Coast, and an earthquake in Turkey. You will find the familiar themes of loneliness, loss, strength, and ingenuity, but it is the love stories that set it apart, making this book a page-turner.”

    Kate Walsh

    Editor-in-Chief, Hour Detroit

  • "In this collection of stories, Fowler offers an extraordinary retrospective on 2020, a year of jarring isolation. Set against the backdrop of the pandemic, we witness lives forced to change, shrinking to fit apartments, lungs raked by wildfire smoke and COVID-19. Peace and routine are broken by homeschooling and explosions. Joy and fear are in the fine lines of positive pregnancy and Covid tests. Individually, such personal stories offer insight into the ordinariness of lives interrupted; collectively, they expose remarkable similarities and resilience in the shared human experience."

    Susie Davidson Powell

    Columnist and Dining Critic, Albany Times Union