Pale Horse, Pale Rider

They could discuss Solomonic wisdom or Job-like suffering, write phrases such as “turn the other cheek” or “prodigal son,” or give their books titles such as “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” or “East of Eden” with confidence that these two-by-fours — these lengths of rebar — would bear weight in a reader’s mind.

Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” and Zadie Smith’s “Intimations” are pandemic specific and beautiful.

The Maxwell book is a good example, but also, in Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider, she is haunted in her dreams.

Katherine Anne Porter’s “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” was inspired by the flu epidemic of 1918-1919 that killed millions at the same time that World War I, which killed millions more, was ending.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider gives the bones of this experience to its protagonist, Miranda Gay.