Leah De Forest’s debut novel, Any Kind of Known Tomorrow, takes place in the surreal early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of makeshift facemasks, bleach-wiping groceries, and wondering just how bad things would get.
It follows four women — a daughter, a mother, and a grandmother, along with an unexpected guest — sardined in a New York City apartment during the pressure-cooker weeks of the lockdown. The book joins a growing catalog of novels that tackle that bizarre period.
De Forest, an instructor and academic adviser at Harvard Extension School, spoke to The Harvard Gazette about the challenges and possibilities of revisiting the pandemic in fiction.
