pale rider

“There was a definite feeling that science had failed us,” said Laura Spinney, science journalist and author of “Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World.”

Out of the 11 beers and ciders on her menu, Very Berry, Pale Rider, Thatchers Haze and Strongbow are off for the winter.

Three days later, Republicans won control of the House and the Senate, led by a pale rider named Newt Gingrich.

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.