2020: A Private Diary From A Time When Humanity Went Mad But (despite predictions to the contrary) the World Didn't End

by Sarah A. Chrisman

"We think the age in which we live is the age… that the crisis we face is the most momentous. As matter of fact, crises are as regular in the history of a nation as the rising of the sun and the going down thereof." —Joseph Howard, Jr., 1888.

This is the private diary of a real woman in the crazed year of 2020, a woman who understood that humanity had been through far worse catastrophes and who tried to set a good example, even when the doctrine of "keep calm and carry on" had become criminalized. It is a day-to-day record observing the world's slide into hysteria and how one couple coped with a situation which became increasingly intolerable as fear was mandated, store shelves emptied, and citizens were stripped of the very rights on which our nation was founded.
In the autumn of the year, when the panic in their home region had exceeded endurance, the diarist and her husband took a road trip to go looking for America and she recorded views across this great land in a pastiche of flitting glimpses. They traveled from the mountains and shining sea of their home (a place which had devolved into a hellish cross between something from the pages of Orwell and a scene from Samuel Beckett), to the desert of the southwest ("A very… interesting part of America", where it looked as though the residents had spent money on COVID signage that could have been better allocated towards food), to the heartland of the prairie where Fate showed them a new home where things, perhaps, could be just a little better.
In the manner of all real diaries, these pages chronicle reflections on grand themes but also record the minutiae of daily life as the diarist and her husband struggle to grow their own food on a tiny city lot and maintain hope in a world gone mad. A verbal collage, it shifts and flows from quick jottings about things as simple as planting seeds and raising chickens to eloquent assessments of the state of the world. The result is a literary mosaic — and a singularly honest account of day to day life in that momentous year.
The ramifications of that the year 2020 are still ongoing. The author of this diary has shared her very private experiences to help in the world's comprehension of that time, to help future generations understand and resolve not to repeat the world's cruelty to itself, and most of all to help those proud few who, like herself, refused to succumb to panic.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published June 18, 2023

About the author

Sarah A. Chrisman grew up in Renton, Washington, in the late twentieth-century, but always felt she should have been born in the 1800's. (When she was a young child, her mother took her to visit the Flavel House Victorian Museum in Astoria, Oregon, and Sarah begged to be left there.) Like any good Victorian lady, she has an advanced education in the humanities: she holds degrees in both International Studies and in French from the University of Washington (c/o 2002.) She has found a way to combine her interest in cultural studies with her lifelong love of history by helping people understand the culture and everyday details of the Victorian era. She has presented to groups at numerous museums, libraries, and schools. She wears Victorian clothing every day and her book, Victorian Secrets: What A Corset Taught Me About The Past, The Present, and Myself, chronicles her first year of wearing a Victorian-style corset twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She lives with her husband in Port Townsend, Washington, a beautiful Victorian seaport northwest of Seattle.

Reviews

[Chloe]

I’ve read and re-read Sarah Chrisman’s other memoirs - Victorian Secrets and This Victorian Life - I even have them on audiobook because they’re very soothing to listen to if I’m trying to fall asleep or otherwise need to be distracted. I love the idea of living like it’s Victorian times and find that life so interesting, so I’ve been wishing for another autobiographical book from her and eventually was surprised to see this one given a small mention in one of her videos. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of it before. It took me a while to get around to it, though - I couldn’t quite bring myself to order it for a long time because I could tell by the description (and a few reviews) that the main focus of the book was something I had a completely different perspective on and I worried it would spoil things. Eventually I asked for the book for Christmas this last December and was excited to see it arrive. Despite being in disagreement about a lot of passages in the book, I ate this up as I did her other books. If you’re in the same boat as me, honestly, I still found it a treat. I’d love another memoir about fixing up and living in their new (old) Iowa house! I too moved out of a city and bought a historic home, and it’s nice reading about people fixing up such a house themselves and not relying on spending a ton of money having other people do it (something unrelatable about that other Port Townsend home renovation memoir which Sarah mentions in this book but which I found lacking the same character and historical interest).

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is nothing but vitriol being spewed across too many pages! First the author claims she is constantly groped when she is in public and can no longer go anywhere alone. She then proceeds to tell tales of being screamed at by the clerks in the grocery store (where she has gone alone) because she refuses to wear a face mask. Much of the book is about who is and isn't wearing face masks, how ridiculous people are being for believing the news about the Coronavirus, even laughing at the First Nations in the Southwest for "making a big deal about nothing". The author makes fun of a writing student and claims the student is only fit to sanitize carts at the grocery store (odd, since COVID doesn't exist?). I will admit, I tired of the book quickly and only needed to skip around on the pages, trying not to be stuck in the mud the author was slinging every which way. No wonder she had to publish it herself. Don't waste your time, although I will admit, there were times it was so outlandish I couldn't stop laughing!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This diary starts in the March of 2020, a time when everything went upside down in our country and the world. This diary gives us a glimpse of what it was like on the West Coast, and in the very state that all the craziness started. Our state was pretty tight with regulations, but not anywhere near the way it was in Washington state. I do think it’s wonderfully brave for Mrs. Chrisman to publish her very private thoughts, fears and concerns. I do recommend others to read this book. No matter where you stand on the issue, we need to have our voices heard. And God forbid this word to happen again, hopefully we would be kinder and more compassionate towards one another.