A stunning collection of new short stories originally commissioned by The New York Times Magazine as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, from 29 authors including Margaret Atwood, Tommy Orange, Edwidge Danticat and more, in a project inspired by Boccaccio's "The Decameron." When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it. As the coronavirus pandemic swept the world, The New York Times Magazine asked 29 authors to write new short stories...

One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbors gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants, some of whom have barely spoken to each other, become real neighbors. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editor Margaret Atwood, Authors Guild president Douglas...