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Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Science & Technology (2019)The 2013–2014 Ebola epidemic was the deadliest ever—but the outbreaks continue. Now comes a gripping account of the doctors and scientists fighting to protect us, an urgent wake-up call about the future of emerging viruses—from the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone, soon to be a National Geographic original miniseries.
This time, Ebola started with a two-year-old child who likely had contact with a wild creature and whose entire family quickly fell ill and died. The ensuing global drama activated health professionals in North America, Europe, and Africa in a desperate race against time to contain the viral wildfire. By the end—as the virus mutated into its deadliest form, and spread farther and faster than ever before—30,000 people would be infected, and the dead would be spread across eight countries on three continents.
In this taut and suspenseful medical drama, Richard Preston deeply chronicles the outbreak, in which we saw for the first time the specter of Ebola jumping continents, crossing the Atlantic, and infecting people in America. Rich in characters and conflict—physical, emotional, and ethical—Crisis in the Red Zone is an immersion in one of the great public health calamities of our time.
Preston writes of doctors and nurses in the field putting their own lives on the line, of government bureaucrats and NGO administrators moving, often fitfully, to try to contain the outbreak, and of pharmaceutical companies racing to develop drugs to combat the virus. He also explores the charged ethical dilemma over who should and did receive the rare doses of an experimental treatment when they became available at the peak of the disaster.
Crisis in the Red Zone makes clear that the outbreak of 2013–2014 is a harbinger of further, more severe outbreaks, and of emerging viruses heretofore unimagined—in any country, on any continent. In our ever more interconnected world, with roads and towns cut deep into the jungles of equatorial Africa, viruses both familiar and undiscovered are being unleashed into more densely populated areas than ever before.
The more we discover about the virosphere, the more we realize its deadly potential. Crisis in the Red Zone is an exquisitely timely book, a stark warning of viral outbreaks to come.
This time, Ebola started with a two-year-old child who likely had contact with a wild creature and whose entire family quickly fell ill and died. The ensuing global drama activated health professionals in North America, Europe, and Africa in a desperate race against time to contain the viral wildfire. By the end—as the virus mutated into its deadliest form, and spread farther and faster than ever before—30,000 people would be infected, and the dead would be spread across eight countries on three continents.
In this taut and suspenseful medical drama, Richard Preston deeply chronicles the outbreak, in which we saw for the first time the specter of Ebola jumping continents, crossing the Atlantic, and infecting people in America. Rich in characters and conflict—physical, emotional, and ethical—Crisis in the Red Zone is an immersion in one of the great public health calamities of our time.
Preston writes of doctors and nurses in the field putting their own lives on the line, of government bureaucrats and NGO administrators moving, often fitfully, to try to contain the outbreak, and of pharmaceutical companies racing to develop drugs to combat the virus. He also explores the charged ethical dilemma over who should and did receive the rare doses of an experimental treatment when they became available at the peak of the disaster.
Crisis in the Red Zone makes clear that the outbreak of 2013–2014 is a harbinger of further, more severe outbreaks, and of emerging viruses heretofore unimagined—in any country, on any continent. In our ever more interconnected world, with roads and towns cut deep into the jungles of equatorial Africa, viruses both familiar and undiscovered are being unleashed into more densely populated areas than ever before.
The more we discover about the virosphere, the more we realize its deadly potential. Crisis in the Red Zone is an exquisitely timely book, a stark warning of viral outbreaks to come.
375 pages, Hardcover
First published July 23, 2019
938 people are currently reading
16817 people want to read
About the author
Richard Preston
21 books1,407 followersRichard Preston is a journalist and nonfiction writer.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 961 reviews
December 6, 2025
These days, nothing get our collective attention quite like an epidemic, and Ebola is about as terrifying as they come. Not only are the symptoms gruesome, but the way it propagates via touch as people care for their sick loved ones sounds like something straight out of dystopian sci-fi.
In Crisis in the Red Zone, we follow the horrific 2013-2014 Ebola epidemic that engulfed Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia and eventually went on to infect almost 30,000 people. The book focuses on the Makona Triangle, where the virus first grabbed hold and exploded, and also on Kenema Government Hospital as it quickly became overwhelmed as the only hospital in Sierra Leone with a functional infectious disease unit that could handle Ebola.
What's so riveting about this book is that the virus's effects on humans and its vicious propagation methods are more horrifying than any fictional epidemic/pandemic book I've ever read. During the initial outbreak, the international community did not take this very seriously, and so very little aid arrived. These three relatively poor countries had fragile medical infrastructures which quickly reached their limit and became swamped by the deluge of sick people.
It's one thing to understand a catastrophe from the macro level, another altogether to see it from up close. And that's what Richard Preston aims to achieve with this book. He takes a disaster happening far away and brings humanity to it by telling the story through the eyes of the people on the ground—the doctors, nurses, and scientists fighting on the front lines. Their courage is awe inspiring and their terror is visceral as they battle against this virus that's spreading faster than they can contain it and could possibly kill them in the process.
The book delves into the epidemiological roots of the virus, its current mutations, and where it can go from here if we are not careful. It also explores the ethical implications around who to treat if there are limited resources available or if the only potential medicine is unproven and untested against humans.
I found this whole read to be captivating and informative. It's as gripping as a thriller, but more real and horrifying because it isn't fiction. It's easy to feel a sense of distance when something bad is happening on the other side of the world, to feel as if it could never touch us. So to read this book is to understand the minds and emotions of the medical professionals battling Ebola and to see their fight come alive. These people are the real heroes, and I'm glad their story is being told.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
✧ Connect with me ✧ Instagram ✧
In Crisis in the Red Zone, we follow the horrific 2013-2014 Ebola epidemic that engulfed Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia and eventually went on to infect almost 30,000 people. The book focuses on the Makona Triangle, where the virus first grabbed hold and exploded, and also on Kenema Government Hospital as it quickly became overwhelmed as the only hospital in Sierra Leone with a functional infectious disease unit that could handle Ebola.
What's so riveting about this book is that the virus's effects on humans and its vicious propagation methods are more horrifying than any fictional epidemic/pandemic book I've ever read. During the initial outbreak, the international community did not take this very seriously, and so very little aid arrived. These three relatively poor countries had fragile medical infrastructures which quickly reached their limit and became swamped by the deluge of sick people.
It's one thing to understand a catastrophe from the macro level, another altogether to see it from up close. And that's what Richard Preston aims to achieve with this book. He takes a disaster happening far away and brings humanity to it by telling the story through the eyes of the people on the ground—the doctors, nurses, and scientists fighting on the front lines. Their courage is awe inspiring and their terror is visceral as they battle against this virus that's spreading faster than they can contain it and could possibly kill them in the process.
The book delves into the epidemiological roots of the virus, its current mutations, and where it can go from here if we are not careful. It also explores the ethical implications around who to treat if there are limited resources available or if the only potential medicine is unproven and untested against humans.
I found this whole read to be captivating and informative. It's as gripping as a thriller, but more real and horrifying because it isn't fiction. It's easy to feel a sense of distance when something bad is happening on the other side of the world, to feel as if it could never touch us. So to read this book is to understand the minds and emotions of the medical professionals battling Ebola and to see their fight come alive. These people are the real heroes, and I'm glad their story is being told.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
✧ Connect with me ✧ Instagram ✧
August 30, 2019
5+++++ stars – but proceed with caution!
While I was kind of goofy with my status messages throughout this book, I would definitely say that was a defense mechanism. This book is very serious and very scary. Touted as a sequel to Preston’s enthralling book, The Hot Zone, this book is equally mesmerizing! I have no problem declaring Preston the master of Non-Fiction bio-hazard books. If you have any interest in how scary nature can be, you must check his work out!
Again, this book is 100% fact – and that makes it all the more terrifying. If you want to go through life not worried about your mortality at the hand of communicable disease or you have hypochondriac tendencies, this is not the book for you. If you have issues with actual medical gore – not cheesy Hollywood horror gore – but the real thing, this is not the book for you. But, if you are fascinated in the delicate barrier between the human world and the virus world and how close we have recently come to apocalyptic worldwide viral meltdown, you must check this book out.
I highly recommend this book as well as his others – The Demon In The Freezer< (Smallpox Non-Fiction), The Cobra Event (Viral apocalypse fiction), and The Hot Zone (Ebola Non-Fiction) – all of them 5+ stars.
While I was kind of goofy with my status messages throughout this book, I would definitely say that was a defense mechanism. This book is very serious and very scary. Touted as a sequel to Preston’s enthralling book, The Hot Zone, this book is equally mesmerizing! I have no problem declaring Preston the master of Non-Fiction bio-hazard books. If you have any interest in how scary nature can be, you must check his work out!
Again, this book is 100% fact – and that makes it all the more terrifying. If you want to go through life not worried about your mortality at the hand of communicable disease or you have hypochondriac tendencies, this is not the book for you. If you have issues with actual medical gore – not cheesy Hollywood horror gore – but the real thing, this is not the book for you. But, if you are fascinated in the delicate barrier between the human world and the virus world and how close we have recently come to apocalyptic worldwide viral meltdown, you must check this book out.
I highly recommend this book as well as his others – The Demon In The Freezer< (Smallpox Non-Fiction), The Cobra Event (Viral apocalypse fiction), and The Hot Zone (Ebola Non-Fiction) – all of them 5+ stars.
November 9, 2019
A biomedical, microbiological and terrifying trip to tiny superpredators and some thoughts about how they may evolve and be (mis)used.
The suffering of the populations of these countries is as unbelievable and the courage of the help workers who had to fight against fake news denying the existence of ebola, people stealing infected family members from hospitals and the tradition of rinsing the bodies of the deceased to bathe in the same water. Tragic cases of misleading cultural norms that made the epidemic longer, larger and more dangerous. The mistrust in western doctors is whereas something based on colonial crimes.
This outbreak was just the biggest one in human history until now and the question of what the future will bring is one of the most disturbing aspects the reading of this book implements in the mind of the reader.
One know´s those overachievers who to do much too well in a too short period while all others are still procrastinating. Well, Ebola is such a case. In monkeys, it is still not too hardcore to self-destruct by killing the whole population, but as soon as the pandemic spillover scenario takes place, it gets nasty really quick.
The cytokine storm, the liquefication of inner organs and the unbelievable amount of produced viruses make it a killer with the same potential as smallpox as a biological agent for warfare. Even without further, natural evolution of the virus, it is already incredibly dangerous.
To say that highly developed countries may be immune to problems with outbreaks like that is seld-deceit and denial of reality. Take one of the fast-growing megacities, a neuralgic point like an airport, rail station or city center and think of the average apocalypse movie. There is no argument against that and just because it still didn´t happen doesn´t mean that it won´t happen. Just a normal outbreak could kill hundreds of thousands until it´s under control, but let´s say it is in combination with a natural disaster like a hurricane or a large terrorist attack on infrastructure that is combined with an attack with biological weapons like Lassa fever, Ebola, a super Flu, a pandemic, smallpox, etc. in New York, Mumbai, London, Berlin, Beijing, Paris,... In such a setting millions will die and reverse quarantine won´t help anything.
Another option for biological warfare is to simply infect refugees and sent them to the country one wants to harm. Or, more subtle, use highly skilled, brainwashed agents that work in important companies and government agencies, infect themselves all at the same time with an ethnic bioweapon like ebolapox, spread the virus before the first symptoms could give the hint and hide so that nobody is alarmed by their death. A smaller country could even be invaded after such a first strike because the soldiers wouldn't have to fear contagion if they are already vaccinated against the used agent or the ethnic bioweapon is so sophisticated that just humans living in the enemy country get infected.
Genetic engineering will be the best solution and the worst problem at the same time.
For medicine, vaccines are just the first step. Viruses, bacteria and especially phages have the potential for individualized medicine, self-healing applications, drug transport inside the body and as allies of the human body against other invaders. They are so highly developed that science can learn endless things and probably find cures for many diseases that are still seen as incurable.
On the other, darker side terrorists could add resistance to heat and cold, even acid or disinfectants and, the worst thing, the ability to survive outside human bodies long enough, to fly trough air over vast distances to new hosts. To make viruses more potent, contagious and more difficult to detect, especially if the amount needed to provoke an outbreak gets smaller and smaller and completely new viruses are created whose genetic fingerprint is still unknown and undetectable.
And there is nature that has already produced too great working killer like the Spanish flu. Nothing is more attractive to dangerous microorganisms than to adapt better and better to the most attractive prey and well, that seems to be the human species. We are an especially great place for experiments because we tend to fly from climate zone to climate zone and that´s a great acclimation exercise and a nice, free world cruise at the same time for those nasty little monsters.
It will be an endless chess game between nature and different fractions of human society who try to cure or kill all other people.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biologi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioprep...
The suffering of the populations of these countries is as unbelievable and the courage of the help workers who had to fight against fake news denying the existence of ebola, people stealing infected family members from hospitals and the tradition of rinsing the bodies of the deceased to bathe in the same water. Tragic cases of misleading cultural norms that made the epidemic longer, larger and more dangerous. The mistrust in western doctors is whereas something based on colonial crimes.
This outbreak was just the biggest one in human history until now and the question of what the future will bring is one of the most disturbing aspects the reading of this book implements in the mind of the reader.
One know´s those overachievers who to do much too well in a too short period while all others are still procrastinating. Well, Ebola is such a case. In monkeys, it is still not too hardcore to self-destruct by killing the whole population, but as soon as the pandemic spillover scenario takes place, it gets nasty really quick.
The cytokine storm, the liquefication of inner organs and the unbelievable amount of produced viruses make it a killer with the same potential as smallpox as a biological agent for warfare. Even without further, natural evolution of the virus, it is already incredibly dangerous.
To say that highly developed countries may be immune to problems with outbreaks like that is seld-deceit and denial of reality. Take one of the fast-growing megacities, a neuralgic point like an airport, rail station or city center and think of the average apocalypse movie. There is no argument against that and just because it still didn´t happen doesn´t mean that it won´t happen. Just a normal outbreak could kill hundreds of thousands until it´s under control, but let´s say it is in combination with a natural disaster like a hurricane or a large terrorist attack on infrastructure that is combined with an attack with biological weapons like Lassa fever, Ebola, a super Flu, a pandemic, smallpox, etc. in New York, Mumbai, London, Berlin, Beijing, Paris,... In such a setting millions will die and reverse quarantine won´t help anything.
Another option for biological warfare is to simply infect refugees and sent them to the country one wants to harm. Or, more subtle, use highly skilled, brainwashed agents that work in important companies and government agencies, infect themselves all at the same time with an ethnic bioweapon like ebolapox, spread the virus before the first symptoms could give the hint and hide so that nobody is alarmed by their death. A smaller country could even be invaded after such a first strike because the soldiers wouldn't have to fear contagion if they are already vaccinated against the used agent or the ethnic bioweapon is so sophisticated that just humans living in the enemy country get infected.
Genetic engineering will be the best solution and the worst problem at the same time.
For medicine, vaccines are just the first step. Viruses, bacteria and especially phages have the potential for individualized medicine, self-healing applications, drug transport inside the body and as allies of the human body against other invaders. They are so highly developed that science can learn endless things and probably find cures for many diseases that are still seen as incurable.
On the other, darker side terrorists could add resistance to heat and cold, even acid or disinfectants and, the worst thing, the ability to survive outside human bodies long enough, to fly trough air over vast distances to new hosts. To make viruses more potent, contagious and more difficult to detect, especially if the amount needed to provoke an outbreak gets smaller and smaller and completely new viruses are created whose genetic fingerprint is still unknown and undetectable.
And there is nature that has already produced too great working killer like the Spanish flu. Nothing is more attractive to dangerous microorganisms than to adapt better and better to the most attractive prey and well, that seems to be the human species. We are an especially great place for experiments because we tend to fly from climate zone to climate zone and that´s a great acclimation exercise and a nice, free world cruise at the same time for those nasty little monsters.
It will be an endless chess game between nature and different fractions of human society who try to cure or kill all other people.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biologi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioprep...
March 19, 2020
I came into this book with both curiosity and some slight trepidation that it might not quite mesh with my current active interest in the Coronavirus. Different kinds of sickness, speed, and symptoms. Ebola is much more deadly, while Coronavirus had the potential to spread across the world and kill even more.
Even so, I dove in and quickly fell into a story that was almost pure horror. It was worse because everything in it was true.
Do you want descriptions that would turn the stomachs of even the most hardcore horror fan? Look no further.
The late 70's started the outbreak but it wasn't until 2014 when a confluence of new strains and the lack of real support for the people attempting to contain it turned Ebola a nightmare scenario completely out of control.
The story ... is shocking. Tragic. Tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy. And this was just a few years ago. Most of the crap could have been prevented with knowledge and actual physical and monetary support, but governments, incompatible ethical concerns, and fear made the entire event into a completely non-hollywood-ending story.
There are possible treatments possible, but they are still caught in red-tape.
Currently, the only thing that has worked is turning whole populations into cold, mercenary triage mentalities. Let the sick die. Avoid them. Avoid everyone. Cut all social ties. No longer touch other people.
This is the kind of thing that worked in Medieval times.
For better or worse, I got a better understanding of the possibilities that are open to us. And they aren't pretty.
The biggest tragedy is that there ARE options, but red-tape is clamping down on them.
The biggest lesson is that we must prepare to self-quarantine. Prepare for large outbreaks. Isolate yourself.
Are there obvious crossovers here? Yes. Unfortunately.
Even so, I dove in and quickly fell into a story that was almost pure horror. It was worse because everything in it was true.
Do you want descriptions that would turn the stomachs of even the most hardcore horror fan? Look no further.
The late 70's started the outbreak but it wasn't until 2014 when a confluence of new strains and the lack of real support for the people attempting to contain it turned Ebola a nightmare scenario completely out of control.
The story ... is shocking. Tragic. Tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy. And this was just a few years ago. Most of the crap could have been prevented with knowledge and actual physical and monetary support, but governments, incompatible ethical concerns, and fear made the entire event into a completely non-hollywood-ending story.
There are possible treatments possible, but they are still caught in red-tape.
Currently, the only thing that has worked is turning whole populations into cold, mercenary triage mentalities. Let the sick die. Avoid them. Avoid everyone. Cut all social ties. No longer touch other people.
This is the kind of thing that worked in Medieval times.
For better or worse, I got a better understanding of the possibilities that are open to us. And they aren't pretty.
The biggest tragedy is that there ARE options, but red-tape is clamping down on them.
The biggest lesson is that we must prepare to self-quarantine. Prepare for large outbreaks. Isolate yourself.
Are there obvious crossovers here? Yes. Unfortunately.
April 17, 2021
This book is outstanding! It focuses on the deadly Ebola outbreak that swept through Guinea in 2014. The bravery and selflessness of frontline workers, volunteers and doctors are truly amazing. Sadly, many perished trying to save others.
What left me in awe is the MSF or Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders code of conduct. I just can't believe it. For equality sake, with ONE set of experimental drug sitting in the freezer, let's keep it since not everyone can get it. Need IV drip? If it's unavailable to every one, forget it. Nobody is getting special treatment. Not even for a dying doctor. 😮🤬
This is my third book by this author and all have been excellent. *Detail about Ebola patients can be gory.
What left me in awe is the MSF or Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders code of conduct. I just can't believe it. For equality sake, with ONE set of experimental drug sitting in the freezer, let's keep it since not everyone can get it. Need IV drip? If it's unavailable to every one, forget it. Nobody is getting special treatment. Not even for a dying doctor. 😮🤬
This is my third book by this author and all have been excellent. *Detail about Ebola patients can be gory.
April 24, 2021
Wow, wow, just wow. A good thriller is that much scarier when IT'S FREAKING REAL.
Review to come, but first I need to bathe, to scrub my skin raw and try to shake the feeling that everything and everyone I've come in contact with is teeming with the ebola virus. Seriously, I'm terrified. We all should be.
------------------------------------
Okay, review time!
Richard Preston can write a true thriller like no one else I've read. He gets into the grit of recent events as they unfold and puts us RIGHT THERE. This is why I've read practically everything he's ever written, and have yet to be disappointed.
We all know the Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus is terrifying, and we have heard about recent outbreaks. But we didn't know what was actually happening, and we have been sheltered by the media from the news that there are still outbreaks in Africa that could threaten the globe. Do we know to be prepared to hole up, if an outbreak hit our cities and towns? Do we understand the concept of reverse quarantine and how it has helped prevent the spread across African countries? There is so much to learn, and Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come offers current and vital information to add on top of The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, The Demon in the Freezer, and the others.
I was fascinated to find out that, like climate change deniers, there are Ebola deniers. One of the biggest reasons Ebola was spreading so quickly five years ago is that there were many who didn't believe this is a real disease, spread by a wet virus. They thought it was some kind of conspiracy created by the white men coming in and putting up hospitals, or it was a demon or gods getting them. These Ebola deniers wouldn't take those infected to the hospitals, and were even stealing infected people from hospitals and taking them home.
Equally fascinating was the ritual of rinsing (Ebola-covered) family members' bodies after death, then giving honored family members the gift of rinsing with that same water, so they may bathe in the loved one's essence. Yes, literally taking all the active Ebola particles that clung to the deceased's body, rinsing them into a basin and pouring them onto oneself. I am still dumbstruck that these kinds of burial practices haven't destroyed civilizations, given all the plagues and viruses that have attacked humanity over millenia. Or maybe it has?
"Behavior changes. This is how all outbreaks end."
"Ebola outbreaks end when people decide they're going to end."
The changes that took place to slow this current spread of Ebola were intriguing. It sounds so simple -- isolate, wash with bleach, be careful -- but considering the "it's fake news" beliefs of the affected populations, it seems unlikely modern medicine could make an impact, though it's a relief to hear something finally changed.
"The Ebola war wasn't won with modern medicine. It was a medieval war, and it went down as a brutal engagement between ordinary people and a life form that was trying to use the human body as a means of survival through deep time. In order to win this war against an inhuman enemy, people had to make themselves inhuman. They had to suppress their deepest feelings and instincts, tear down the bonds of love and feeling, isolate themselves from or isolate those they loved the most. Human beings had to become like monsters, in order to save their human selves."
My heart goes out to each and every healthcare worker who, against horrifying odds, stepped up and put their lives on the line to battle this disease. Many lost their lives in the fight, and it's unfortunate they are not mourned more publicly.
We have not seen the last of Ebola, for sure, but we can hope for continuing vaccine research and public acknowledgement of the dangers. There will always be a new virus, a new threat, but what we can realistically hope for within our lifetimes is an eradication of the hideous death we expect from Ebola.
Review to come, but first I need to bathe, to scrub my skin raw and try to shake the feeling that everything and everyone I've come in contact with is teeming with the ebola virus. Seriously, I'm terrified. We all should be.
------------------------------------
Okay, review time!
Richard Preston can write a true thriller like no one else I've read. He gets into the grit of recent events as they unfold and puts us RIGHT THERE. This is why I've read practically everything he's ever written, and have yet to be disappointed.
We all know the Ebola hemorrhagic fever virus is terrifying, and we have heard about recent outbreaks. But we didn't know what was actually happening, and we have been sheltered by the media from the news that there are still outbreaks in Africa that could threaten the globe. Do we know to be prepared to hole up, if an outbreak hit our cities and towns? Do we understand the concept of reverse quarantine and how it has helped prevent the spread across African countries? There is so much to learn, and Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come offers current and vital information to add on top of The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, The Demon in the Freezer, and the others.
I was fascinated to find out that, like climate change deniers, there are Ebola deniers. One of the biggest reasons Ebola was spreading so quickly five years ago is that there were many who didn't believe this is a real disease, spread by a wet virus. They thought it was some kind of conspiracy created by the white men coming in and putting up hospitals, or it was a demon or gods getting them. These Ebola deniers wouldn't take those infected to the hospitals, and were even stealing infected people from hospitals and taking them home.
Equally fascinating was the ritual of rinsing (Ebola-covered) family members' bodies after death, then giving honored family members the gift of rinsing with that same water, so they may bathe in the loved one's essence. Yes, literally taking all the active Ebola particles that clung to the deceased's body, rinsing them into a basin and pouring them onto oneself. I am still dumbstruck that these kinds of burial practices haven't destroyed civilizations, given all the plagues and viruses that have attacked humanity over millenia. Or maybe it has?
"Behavior changes. This is how all outbreaks end."
"Ebola outbreaks end when people decide they're going to end."
The changes that took place to slow this current spread of Ebola were intriguing. It sounds so simple -- isolate, wash with bleach, be careful -- but considering the "it's fake news" beliefs of the affected populations, it seems unlikely modern medicine could make an impact, though it's a relief to hear something finally changed.
"The Ebola war wasn't won with modern medicine. It was a medieval war, and it went down as a brutal engagement between ordinary people and a life form that was trying to use the human body as a means of survival through deep time. In order to win this war against an inhuman enemy, people had to make themselves inhuman. They had to suppress their deepest feelings and instincts, tear down the bonds of love and feeling, isolate themselves from or isolate those they loved the most. Human beings had to become like monsters, in order to save their human selves."
My heart goes out to each and every healthcare worker who, against horrifying odds, stepped up and put their lives on the line to battle this disease. Many lost their lives in the fight, and it's unfortunate they are not mourned more publicly.
We have not seen the last of Ebola, for sure, but we can hope for continuing vaccine research and public acknowledgement of the dangers. There will always be a new virus, a new threat, but what we can realistically hope for within our lifetimes is an eradication of the hideous death we expect from Ebola.
May 24, 2020
Many thanks to Random House for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review
I would like to start this review by warning you guys that this book is depressing as f**k. I felt as though the basic message was: Ebola came to eradicate humanity but it failed but don’t worry! It will be back to kill us all.
Crisis in the Red Zone is the story of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. I distinctly remember that time because my anxiety was through the roof. During that time, I was compulsively washing my hands once or twice an hour and avoided anyone with a cough. Basically, Ebola is responsible for my OCD (just kidding. My OCD stems from… everything)
I think the creepiest part of this book was the fact that it reads like a science fiction thriller when, in actuality, it is nonfiction. If that’s not terrifying, I don’t know what is.
Overall, this book was scary, informative, and extremely well written. Recommended if you can handle gore and love science!
Bottom Line
4 Stars
Age Rating: [ R ]
Content Screening (Spoilers) - Educational Value (5/5) - [Ebola, virusology, microbiology, science, proper sanitation, etc.] ~ Positive Messages (0/5) - [None. Humanity is f**ked] ~ Sex (0/5) - [None] ~ Violence (5/5) - [Gore, body horror] ~ Language (3/5) - [Sh*t, f*ck] ~ Drinking/Drugs (3/5) - [Medicinal drugs]
Trigger and Content Warning - Loss of a loved one, Body horror, hypochondria
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2019
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Genre: Science/Nonfiction
Blurb: “Scary, shocking, and informative.”
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well that was depressing
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you don't want to know how many misquito bites i got while taking this photo
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March 19, 2020
Ebola. One of the scariest words in the human language. Because it's one of the scariest viruses one can imagine.
There is not too much known about it. The symptoms, of course, because we see the suffering of the infected. But we have no idea where it came from, how long it's been on this planet, how it evolved or anything like that.
We do know that there are 6 different types of ebola virus so far but considering how fast viruses can mutate, that doesn't mean too much. The six types are named after the areas where they first showed up: Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Reston ebolavirus, Sudan ebolavirus, Taï Forest ebolavirus (originally Côte d'Ivoire ebolavirus), Zaire ebolavirus, and Bombali ebolavirus.
Four of these six viruses cause EVD (Ebola virus disease), a type of hemorrhagic fever, with a very high case fatality rate. One of them (the Reston virus) has caused EVD in other primates as well.
The Zaire ebolavirus is the reference/example species and has the highest mortality rate (up to 90% and an average of 83%). It is also the type that is responsible for the largest number of outbreaks, including the one in 1976, which is the topic of Richard Preston's first book that my buddy-reader, Brad, and I skipped: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
And it is the type with the most deaths => see the outbreak from 2014 that this book is talking about.
And yes, 1976 is when this virus was encountered for the very first time.
(This is an electron micrograph of an Ebola virus virion.)
According to the World Health Organization, there have been 24 outbreaks involving 2.387 cases with 1.590 deaths between 1976 and 2013. The largest outbreak to date was the epidemic in West Africa from December 2013 to January 2016 (talked about in the above mentioned first book by this author) with 28.646 cases and 11.323 deaths. It was declared no longer an emergency on 29 March 2016.
Other outbreaks in Africa began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 2017 and 2018.
In July 2019, the World Health Organization declared the Congo Ebola outbreak a world health emergency. Nothing much has happened since other than that people keep dying and doctors are frantically trying to keep the death rate as low as possible.
So this second book, as stated above, deals with the outbreak in 2013/2014.
It thus details of pregnant women giving birth to dead children and subsequently dying from profound haemorrhages. Since many humans' first instinct is to help, especially a pregnant woman, you can imagine how easy infection is - particularly in the beginning, when people don't yet know that the person they are trying to save carries a lethal virus.
There is lots of death in here. Horrible death. Painful and disgusting death. We learn about the transmission, we learn about people's superstitions, we learn about valiant doctors from around the world and we learn about governments who just can't be bothered to at least throw SOME money at the problem (which could help with getting equipment at the very least).
Richard Preston has managed a remarkable feat here. He introduces the reader to every single person we know by name and tells their stories. He does so like a journalist would, creating a sort of distance to the reader - one that nevertheless evaporates as soon as Ebola makes an entrance. Because there is no way a normal person won't feel the danger and the fear and the pain. The immediacy as well as urgency.
Personally, I've never been squeamish or bothered by sickness and/or bodily functions. Maybe it has to do with having had to take care of so many old and sick relatives. I've also always been fascinated by biology and chemistry and thus anatomy and diseases of any kind. Yes, I still dream of the possibility to be present during an autopsy to see all that I've read about for myself. I'd even help if I was allowed to.
Which is to say that I have no problem looking at something like the human body from a kind of distance. I see a problem, I try to solve it. Someone being sick is a problem. So I get the doctors we are introduced to here.
Moreover, it means that I'm always interested in books like this and it makes no difference to me if I read them during the Corona-crisis or at any other time. *shrugs*
The writing style was very neutral, stating the facts, creating the afore-mentioned distance. The author probably (correctly) counted on the events moving his readers enough as is.
The book is meticulously researched, showing anything from history and science to religious beliefs that led to socio-political problems, and I "enjoyed" reading it a lot (if that is how one can describe the reading experience). Most importantly, it is a kind of road map showing what we did wrong in the hope that we'll do better in the future.
There is not too much known about it. The symptoms, of course, because we see the suffering of the infected. But we have no idea where it came from, how long it's been on this planet, how it evolved or anything like that.
We do know that there are 6 different types of ebola virus so far but considering how fast viruses can mutate, that doesn't mean too much. The six types are named after the areas where they first showed up: Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Reston ebolavirus, Sudan ebolavirus, Taï Forest ebolavirus (originally Côte d'Ivoire ebolavirus), Zaire ebolavirus, and Bombali ebolavirus.
Four of these six viruses cause EVD (Ebola virus disease), a type of hemorrhagic fever, with a very high case fatality rate. One of them (the Reston virus) has caused EVD in other primates as well.
The Zaire ebolavirus is the reference/example species and has the highest mortality rate (up to 90% and an average of 83%). It is also the type that is responsible for the largest number of outbreaks, including the one in 1976, which is the topic of Richard Preston's first book that my buddy-reader, Brad, and I skipped: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
And it is the type with the most deaths => see the outbreak from 2014 that this book is talking about.
And yes, 1976 is when this virus was encountered for the very first time.
(This is an electron micrograph of an Ebola virus virion.)
According to the World Health Organization, there have been 24 outbreaks involving 2.387 cases with 1.590 deaths between 1976 and 2013. The largest outbreak to date was the epidemic in West Africa from December 2013 to January 2016 (talked about in the above mentioned first book by this author) with 28.646 cases and 11.323 deaths. It was declared no longer an emergency on 29 March 2016.
Other outbreaks in Africa began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 2017 and 2018.
In July 2019, the World Health Organization declared the Congo Ebola outbreak a world health emergency. Nothing much has happened since other than that people keep dying and doctors are frantically trying to keep the death rate as low as possible.
So this second book, as stated above, deals with the outbreak in 2013/2014.
It thus details of pregnant women giving birth to dead children and subsequently dying from profound haemorrhages. Since many humans' first instinct is to help, especially a pregnant woman, you can imagine how easy infection is - particularly in the beginning, when people don't yet know that the person they are trying to save carries a lethal virus.
There is lots of death in here. Horrible death. Painful and disgusting death. We learn about the transmission, we learn about people's superstitions, we learn about valiant doctors from around the world and we learn about governments who just can't be bothered to at least throw SOME money at the problem (which could help with getting equipment at the very least).
Richard Preston has managed a remarkable feat here. He introduces the reader to every single person we know by name and tells their stories. He does so like a journalist would, creating a sort of distance to the reader - one that nevertheless evaporates as soon as Ebola makes an entrance. Because there is no way a normal person won't feel the danger and the fear and the pain. The immediacy as well as urgency.
Personally, I've never been squeamish or bothered by sickness and/or bodily functions. Maybe it has to do with having had to take care of so many old and sick relatives. I've also always been fascinated by biology and chemistry and thus anatomy and diseases of any kind. Yes, I still dream of the possibility to be present during an autopsy to see all that I've read about for myself. I'd even help if I was allowed to.
Which is to say that I have no problem looking at something like the human body from a kind of distance. I see a problem, I try to solve it. Someone being sick is a problem. So I get the doctors we are introduced to here.
Moreover, it means that I'm always interested in books like this and it makes no difference to me if I read them during the Corona-crisis or at any other time. *shrugs*
The writing style was very neutral, stating the facts, creating the afore-mentioned distance. The author probably (correctly) counted on the events moving his readers enough as is.
The book is meticulously researched, showing anything from history and science to religious beliefs that led to socio-political problems, and I "enjoyed" reading it a lot (if that is how one can describe the reading experience). Most importantly, it is a kind of road map showing what we did wrong in the hope that we'll do better in the future.
November 21, 2019
“[The Ebola outbreak] was really just a series of small accidents and unnoticed events, which, moment by moment, grew into a crescendo of horror. This was the shockwave produced by an emerging virus as it came out of the ecosystem. The virus magnified itself in people, swept away lives, met opposition from the human species, and finally died out. What will the next shockwave be like?”
This is an informative book that didn’t quite mesh with my own personal interests. It traces the spread of Ebola through several outbreaks beginning in Zaire in 1976. I found the book somewhat repetitive and there was way more discussion of symptoms of Ebola than I wanted to read. I would have preferred more analysis of the socioeconomic underpinnings of disease spread. I’m also interested in epidemiology, and I don’t recall a single mention of whether anyone is looking into the people who don’t catch this highly contagious and lethal disease, or those who recover. That just wasn’t the focus of this book.
I did find the book interesting. My favorite part was near the end when an Ebola doctor was denied treatment with an untested drug, for reasons that seemed like total garbage to me. It would make a good case study in an ethics course. At least they’ve saved a dose of the treatment for our President. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
This is an informative book that didn’t quite mesh with my own personal interests. It traces the spread of Ebola through several outbreaks beginning in Zaire in 1976. I found the book somewhat repetitive and there was way more discussion of symptoms of Ebola than I wanted to read. I would have preferred more analysis of the socioeconomic underpinnings of disease spread. I’m also interested in epidemiology, and I don’t recall a single mention of whether anyone is looking into the people who don’t catch this highly contagious and lethal disease, or those who recover. That just wasn’t the focus of this book.
I did find the book interesting. My favorite part was near the end when an Ebola doctor was denied treatment with an untested drug, for reasons that seemed like total garbage to me. It would make a good case study in an ethics course. At least they’ve saved a dose of the treatment for our President. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
July 26, 2020
I don't usually read #1 NY Times bestsellers, nor books that are described as "medical thrillers," but here we are in late July with millions of people infected worldwide with Covid 19, so I nevertheless decided to read Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and the Outbreaks to Come, and was, in short, riveted. And disgusted by the level of detail with respect to the dead and dying. And moved to tears as people we come to know face death and ethical decisions about how to live, given there was not vaccine in sight.
Preston takes us back to the first Ebola outbreaks in West Africa in the mid to late seventies, and then brings us to the 2013-2014 crisis that devastated the health care systems and economies of three West African countries: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. He chooses to focus on the heroic and sometimes tragic efforts of African. European and American medical professionals learning how to use PPE as they struggled to understand just what it was they were facing. And facing skepticism, long cultural and religious practices with respect to the dead and dying. He chooses to focus on one hospital in particular, the Kenema Government Hospital and one painfully small group of terrified and yet committed health care professionals, many of whom died in the process. {I was reminded of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan; who is protecting the lakes? I very small group of scientists you almost never hear from. Scary, and inspiring, but scary.]
"Crisis in the Red Zone" is a kind of funny phrase, pertaining as it does to any virus containment center where people are inevitably dying by the dozens, but this book refers to several crises in particular: Yes, a vaccine was produced quickly, for up to maybe six people, but who to give it to? Several members of Doctors without Borders said if it was given to an American instead of a West African they would quit. Yes, people were finally given the completely experimental vaccine, and a few had dramatic, death-bed recoveries. The man who stayed up all night praying what decision to make about who to give the vaccine to--and would it kill that person-- makes us understand the complexities of what he and they were facing. Anguishing. {and I think of the millionaire sports teams corralling some top notch testing for rich athletes as poor folks can't get access to testing still].
Having recently read Daniel DeFoe's A Journal of the Plague Year about the medieval Black Death, and living during a week when the US again is seeing 1,000+ deaths a day from Covid-19, it is amazing to see a pattern of human behavior from The Plague through the 2014 Ebola Crisis to now: Anti-science, a cry for freedom against government intervention. Ignorance/arrogance. And public health heroes trying to save us. Though in the end Preston understands why folks might be skeptical and afraid of strangers in spacesuits who don't speak your language coming in and insisting you don't bury your own family members.
How did they stop it, in countries our American president has referred to as "s...hole" countries, as folks party on here on the beaches and in bars in denial? They did what we are told now: stay inside as much as possible. They learned to socially distance, they covered themselves as they needed, they changed cultural practices to save themselves. They finally listened to medical professionals. They changed their lives, and in doing so, they saved themselves and others. It was that simple.
Preston takes us back to the first Ebola outbreaks in West Africa in the mid to late seventies, and then brings us to the 2013-2014 crisis that devastated the health care systems and economies of three West African countries: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. He chooses to focus on the heroic and sometimes tragic efforts of African. European and American medical professionals learning how to use PPE as they struggled to understand just what it was they were facing. And facing skepticism, long cultural and religious practices with respect to the dead and dying. He chooses to focus on one hospital in particular, the Kenema Government Hospital and one painfully small group of terrified and yet committed health care professionals, many of whom died in the process. {I was reminded of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan; who is protecting the lakes? I very small group of scientists you almost never hear from. Scary, and inspiring, but scary.]
"Crisis in the Red Zone" is a kind of funny phrase, pertaining as it does to any virus containment center where people are inevitably dying by the dozens, but this book refers to several crises in particular: Yes, a vaccine was produced quickly, for up to maybe six people, but who to give it to? Several members of Doctors without Borders said if it was given to an American instead of a West African they would quit. Yes, people were finally given the completely experimental vaccine, and a few had dramatic, death-bed recoveries. The man who stayed up all night praying what decision to make about who to give the vaccine to--and would it kill that person-- makes us understand the complexities of what he and they were facing. Anguishing. {and I think of the millionaire sports teams corralling some top notch testing for rich athletes as poor folks can't get access to testing still].
Having recently read Daniel DeFoe's A Journal of the Plague Year about the medieval Black Death, and living during a week when the US again is seeing 1,000+ deaths a day from Covid-19, it is amazing to see a pattern of human behavior from The Plague through the 2014 Ebola Crisis to now: Anti-science, a cry for freedom against government intervention. Ignorance/arrogance. And public health heroes trying to save us. Though in the end Preston understands why folks might be skeptical and afraid of strangers in spacesuits who don't speak your language coming in and insisting you don't bury your own family members.
How did they stop it, in countries our American president has referred to as "s...hole" countries, as folks party on here on the beaches and in bars in denial? They did what we are told now: stay inside as much as possible. They learned to socially distance, they covered themselves as they needed, they changed cultural practices to save themselves. They finally listened to medical professionals. They changed their lives, and in doing so, they saved themselves and others. It was that simple.
August 15, 2019
This is thorough but at the same time not as good in continuity, progression, ease to read. Much harder to understand all the tangent parts as in his other disease study- The Hot Zone.
Well worth the read time regardless- yet it's all over the place with 100's of name calls and situations that are difficult to connote all together in the way they are placed and in a chronological pattern which is convoluted, IMHO . It still lets you know pertinent information about the present day 6 strains of Ebola mutation filovirus- how they originated and what the 1976 and then more recent outbreaks have involved and their outcomes. Also in exact time frames to each place- what events occurred in sequences. And what/ how the next virus or strain to enter humans will/ might be crossing barriers from other species in the future.
The contagious degree factor within the cultural practices and societal norms for sick/nursing, and body treatments after death were the most informative for me. I can't imagine the difficulty to change or occlude all of those situational habits.
Having at least 10 particular doctor or nurse histories and family- organizational context criteria! This becomes truly personal. And horrific. What bravery too. Dr. Hahn's story and others too. Beyond my imagining. The stations are little more than complete separation from the other populations in tents.
In this age of airplane and vast travel- the remedy available in any sense (even that dose of virus eater) seems so minuscule as compared to the reality of the Ebola's nature. Speed AND occurrence rates- there would never be time or supply.
Well worth the read time regardless- yet it's all over the place with 100's of name calls and situations that are difficult to connote all together in the way they are placed and in a chronological pattern which is convoluted, IMHO . It still lets you know pertinent information about the present day 6 strains of Ebola mutation filovirus- how they originated and what the 1976 and then more recent outbreaks have involved and their outcomes. Also in exact time frames to each place- what events occurred in sequences. And what/ how the next virus or strain to enter humans will/ might be crossing barriers from other species in the future.
The contagious degree factor within the cultural practices and societal norms for sick/nursing, and body treatments after death were the most informative for me. I can't imagine the difficulty to change or occlude all of those situational habits.
Having at least 10 particular doctor or nurse histories and family- organizational context criteria! This becomes truly personal. And horrific. What bravery too. Dr. Hahn's story and others too. Beyond my imagining. The stations are little more than complete separation from the other populations in tents.
In this age of airplane and vast travel- the remedy available in any sense (even that dose of virus eater) seems so minuscule as compared to the reality of the Ebola's nature. Speed AND occurrence rates- there would never be time or supply.
March 13, 2021
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
by Richard Preston
I read The Hot Zone which dealt with the Ebola crisis in 1970's and I enjoyed how thorough the book was. This book is even better! It goes back and introduces the reader to what happened in 1970's. Then it mostly concentrates on 2013-2014. The information is presented in such a way that most of the nurses and doctors become more than just a name but a real person. We, the readers, know their families, their goals, what they do, and when. We know what happened when, what the hospitals were like. How they tried saving the community, the fears of the community, the calls they made to every world agency, including the US without getting any help!
Also the story of how behind the scenes from individual private companies were working on how to control the Ebola virus. How to save two Americans from death, a brave scientist took the formula to Africa illegally and it was used to help save lives. She was going to be tried too! The two ill Americans were flown to America to continue treatment and lived.
Government hindered progress in many cases up to that point instead of helping. I can't help think of the election campaign arguments and the discussion on Ebola. One group totally dismantled the office to protect us from dangerous viruses. The other group said they helped with Ebola. No they did not. I was hoping, while reading, that the US would intervene but even the Doctors Without Borders were a hindrance. Ebola was a crisis and no one was prepared or organized.
Being a disabled ICU nurse, I know how scary it can be at times but dealing with something like Ebola, wow, I felt for these people. It was an almost sure death if you got it.
This book brought the story of these courageous peoples lives to my heart. It angered me, it saddened me, and opened my eyes. This was written before Covid. Instead of Covid it could have been a level four virus. We need to prepare.
by Richard Preston
I read The Hot Zone which dealt with the Ebola crisis in 1970's and I enjoyed how thorough the book was. This book is even better! It goes back and introduces the reader to what happened in 1970's. Then it mostly concentrates on 2013-2014. The information is presented in such a way that most of the nurses and doctors become more than just a name but a real person. We, the readers, know their families, their goals, what they do, and when. We know what happened when, what the hospitals were like. How they tried saving the community, the fears of the community, the calls they made to every world agency, including the US without getting any help!
Also the story of how behind the scenes from individual private companies were working on how to control the Ebola virus. How to save two Americans from death, a brave scientist took the formula to Africa illegally and it was used to help save lives. She was going to be tried too! The two ill Americans were flown to America to continue treatment and lived.
Government hindered progress in many cases up to that point instead of helping. I can't help think of the election campaign arguments and the discussion on Ebola. One group totally dismantled the office to protect us from dangerous viruses. The other group said they helped with Ebola. No they did not. I was hoping, while reading, that the US would intervene but even the Doctors Without Borders were a hindrance. Ebola was a crisis and no one was prepared or organized.
Being a disabled ICU nurse, I know how scary it can be at times but dealing with something like Ebola, wow, I felt for these people. It was an almost sure death if you got it.
This book brought the story of these courageous peoples lives to my heart. It angered me, it saddened me, and opened my eyes. This was written before Covid. Instead of Covid it could have been a level four virus. We need to prepare.
August 9, 2019
NYTimes Book Review here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/bo...
NYTimes Book Review NONFICTION
Can You Make a Page-Turning Thriller Out of the Ebola Crisis?
By Kendra Pierre-Louis
Aug. 8, 2019
CRISIS IN THE RED ZONE
The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
By Richard Preston
Richard Preston has a penchant for the cinematic, even when his subject matter could not be more depressing and dire. His best-selling 1994 book, “The Hot Zone,” about an Ebola outbreak at a medical research facility in Reston, Va., was recently turned into a mini-series despite its reliance on hyperbole (as the science writer David Quammen rightly noted). His new book, “Crisis in the Red Zone,” falls into a similar trap. Covering the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, it also seems written with a singular intent: inspiring the movie version.
However one feels generally about the dramatic tone that Preston favors, it feels especially inappropriate in this book. The Reston strain of Ebola that was the focus of “The Hot Zone” was not harmful to humans — only other primates died. In contrast, more than 11,000 people died during the Ebola outbreak that is the focus of “Crisis in the Red Zone,” most of them in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In Preston’s hands their lives and suffering often feel like little more than added color, heightened by his choice to end many of the book’s chapters with cliffhangers. One section ends with the well-worn image of a researcher looking ominously into a microscope.
Much like the clichés that are a regular feature of Hollywood films, the stereotypes that pile up in this book quickly become painful. A Frenchman is portrayed as being especially sad when a medical team is forced to leave behind a load of Camembert to make room for medical equipment. But it’s Preston’s portrayal of the nonwhite characters that feels especially egregious.
“The Kissi people of West Africa, who speak their own language and have their own traditions,” he writes — as though it’s unusual for people from any given culture to speak their own language and have their own traditions. He proceeds to launch into exhaustive detail, clearly meant to horrify, about the fact that the Kissi people eat bats. This is salient because it’s considered a possible source for Ebola entering humans. But Preston’s description of the bats as “stinky flying mice” seems designed to make us recoil in disgust over a custom we don’t understand.
His descriptions of Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the people who live there, are so problematic in parts that I took to texting a friend snapshots of the most offending passages and asking her if a virus can be neocolonial. Despite their occasional use in germ warfare, viruses are neutral actors — but there’s nothing neutral about the portrayal of diseases and how we respond to them.
Preston does try to wrestle with the unequal medical treatment received by Africans who contracted the disease versus treatment received by foreign white aid workers who became infected. He details the excruciating decision-making process that denied Humarr Khan, the chief Sierra Leonean doctor attempting to curb the country’s Ebola outbreak, access to ZMapp, an experimental Ebola drug, when he became infected while treating patients. An American doctor and an American missionary were later given access to the drug, and they survived. Dr. Khan did not.
But this examination comes too late, during the book’s final quarter, after Preston has spent chapters mired in caricature and overdramatization. What’s more, the book also falters on a deeper, structural level: Preston raises two key reasons for the likely risk of infectious diseases in the near future, but he doesn’t go on to explore these threats fully enough or in a way that might have added some needed subtlety and context to his larger narrative about the Ebola outbreak.
The first is the dominant theory that Ebola emerged, in part, because humans are increasingly encroaching on previously wild areas, allowing diseases to jump to our species. But the forces driving that pattern of encroachment are not discussed. And that pattern, it should be noted, is happening not just in Africa but in large parts of Asia and in the United States, where according to the Centers for Disease Control, it’s leading to an increase in tick-borne diseases. In other words, this isn’t just an African problem, even if the book leaves you with that strong impression.
Similarly, Preston notes that at least part of the problem in treating Ebola lies with local mistrust of foreign doctors and the way they present themselves to communities. Doctors Without Borders, he writes, show up in white “space suits” whisking away sick patients who, because they rarely overcome Ebola’s high mortality rate, are never seen again, even in death — the nongovernmental organization disposes of the bodies. According to Preston, it was Doctors Without Borders who denied Khan access to ZMapp. One of the organization’s rationales for its decision was that if Khan died from the treatment, or if he was miraculously healed, either outcome would lead to further rumors among the local population, affecting the NGO’s ability to do its job.
Because of their distance and their power over life and death, foreign doctors are sometimes seen as the source of Ebola infection, not as the source of treatment. One community, chronicled in the book, hid sick family members and physically attacked doctors. This narrative, that outsiders brought the disease, has been stoked by some politicians amid the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ebola doctors and medical centers are being attacked. But Preston doesn’t tie this mistrust into a longer history of colonialist violence or the broader story of the 2014 Ebola outbreak itself. Given the book’s warning that this is a portent of global disease outbreaks to come, it would be good to know what this mistrust might mean for future pandemics. Instead Preston folds these bigger questions into passages that have the effect of simply making Africans seem ignorant of basic science.
These distracting gaps are unfortunate, since “Crisis in the Red Zone” also recounts an important story about the risks of emerging diseases and a global medical system ill equipped to handle them. But it’s lost between fevered descriptions designed, seemingly, to provoke the kind of hysteria about Ebola that might work well for the film thriller Preston seems to have in mind.
NYTimes Book Review NONFICTION
Can You Make a Page-Turning Thriller Out of the Ebola Crisis?
By Kendra Pierre-Louis
Aug. 8, 2019
CRISIS IN THE RED ZONE
The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
By Richard Preston
Richard Preston has a penchant for the cinematic, even when his subject matter could not be more depressing and dire. His best-selling 1994 book, “The Hot Zone,” about an Ebola outbreak at a medical research facility in Reston, Va., was recently turned into a mini-series despite its reliance on hyperbole (as the science writer David Quammen rightly noted). His new book, “Crisis in the Red Zone,” falls into a similar trap. Covering the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, it also seems written with a singular intent: inspiring the movie version.
However one feels generally about the dramatic tone that Preston favors, it feels especially inappropriate in this book. The Reston strain of Ebola that was the focus of “The Hot Zone” was not harmful to humans — only other primates died. In contrast, more than 11,000 people died during the Ebola outbreak that is the focus of “Crisis in the Red Zone,” most of them in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In Preston’s hands their lives and suffering often feel like little more than added color, heightened by his choice to end many of the book’s chapters with cliffhangers. One section ends with the well-worn image of a researcher looking ominously into a microscope.
Much like the clichés that are a regular feature of Hollywood films, the stereotypes that pile up in this book quickly become painful. A Frenchman is portrayed as being especially sad when a medical team is forced to leave behind a load of Camembert to make room for medical equipment. But it’s Preston’s portrayal of the nonwhite characters that feels especially egregious.
“The Kissi people of West Africa, who speak their own language and have their own traditions,” he writes — as though it’s unusual for people from any given culture to speak their own language and have their own traditions. He proceeds to launch into exhaustive detail, clearly meant to horrify, about the fact that the Kissi people eat bats. This is salient because it’s considered a possible source for Ebola entering humans. But Preston’s description of the bats as “stinky flying mice” seems designed to make us recoil in disgust over a custom we don’t understand.
His descriptions of Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the people who live there, are so problematic in parts that I took to texting a friend snapshots of the most offending passages and asking her if a virus can be neocolonial. Despite their occasional use in germ warfare, viruses are neutral actors — but there’s nothing neutral about the portrayal of diseases and how we respond to them.
Preston does try to wrestle with the unequal medical treatment received by Africans who contracted the disease versus treatment received by foreign white aid workers who became infected. He details the excruciating decision-making process that denied Humarr Khan, the chief Sierra Leonean doctor attempting to curb the country’s Ebola outbreak, access to ZMapp, an experimental Ebola drug, when he became infected while treating patients. An American doctor and an American missionary were later given access to the drug, and they survived. Dr. Khan did not.
But this examination comes too late, during the book’s final quarter, after Preston has spent chapters mired in caricature and overdramatization. What’s more, the book also falters on a deeper, structural level: Preston raises two key reasons for the likely risk of infectious diseases in the near future, but he doesn’t go on to explore these threats fully enough or in a way that might have added some needed subtlety and context to his larger narrative about the Ebola outbreak.
The first is the dominant theory that Ebola emerged, in part, because humans are increasingly encroaching on previously wild areas, allowing diseases to jump to our species. But the forces driving that pattern of encroachment are not discussed. And that pattern, it should be noted, is happening not just in Africa but in large parts of Asia and in the United States, where according to the Centers for Disease Control, it’s leading to an increase in tick-borne diseases. In other words, this isn’t just an African problem, even if the book leaves you with that strong impression.
Similarly, Preston notes that at least part of the problem in treating Ebola lies with local mistrust of foreign doctors and the way they present themselves to communities. Doctors Without Borders, he writes, show up in white “space suits” whisking away sick patients who, because they rarely overcome Ebola’s high mortality rate, are never seen again, even in death — the nongovernmental organization disposes of the bodies. According to Preston, it was Doctors Without Borders who denied Khan access to ZMapp. One of the organization’s rationales for its decision was that if Khan died from the treatment, or if he was miraculously healed, either outcome would lead to further rumors among the local population, affecting the NGO’s ability to do its job.
Because of their distance and their power over life and death, foreign doctors are sometimes seen as the source of Ebola infection, not as the source of treatment. One community, chronicled in the book, hid sick family members and physically attacked doctors. This narrative, that outsiders brought the disease, has been stoked by some politicians amid the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ebola doctors and medical centers are being attacked. But Preston doesn’t tie this mistrust into a longer history of colonialist violence or the broader story of the 2014 Ebola outbreak itself. Given the book’s warning that this is a portent of global disease outbreaks to come, it would be good to know what this mistrust might mean for future pandemics. Instead Preston folds these bigger questions into passages that have the effect of simply making Africans seem ignorant of basic science.
These distracting gaps are unfortunate, since “Crisis in the Red Zone” also recounts an important story about the risks of emerging diseases and a global medical system ill equipped to handle them. But it’s lost between fevered descriptions designed, seemingly, to provoke the kind of hysteria about Ebola that might work well for the film thriller Preston seems to have in mind.
September 15, 2019
Everything you want to know about Ebola and more. This is a medical history story that reads like a thriller. There’s lots of players to keep track of, some medical miracles and lucky discoveries by otherwise unemployed entrepreneurs. This book carries a dire warning of the continued need to stay on top of best practice for viral outbreaks. Mistrust of outsiders, belief in local and known healers, and lack of proper equipment, medication and supplies all figure in to this outbreak. There are many lessons to be learned and I consider the loyalty of the medical staff who responded to be nothing short of miraculous. I noticed when I was at the hospital this week they continue to inquire if you’ve been out of the country in the last six months.
May 5, 2020
Exhausting — yet essential reading.
This book has a slight edge over The Hot Zone IMO, although they're both exceptional nonfiction reads.
Not sure it was particularly wise to read these two back-to-back this month, but they really did put things into perspective.
Thankfully we are not currently facing an Ebola outbreak that averages a BLOODY death toll of between 25-90%.
So on one hand, I'm relieved that the average death rate of the current pandemic is MUCH lower, and way less gory than that of Ebola. On the other hand, the discussion on the infectiousness of viruses and how they are the ultimate killer was pretty stressful.
I'm ready to take a break from Ebola books, that's for sure, although Preston masterfully covers this topic with amazing panache.
*Quotes*
“Ebola virus moves from one person to the next by following the deepest and most personal ties of love, care, and duty that join people to one another and most clearly define us as human. The virus exploits the best parts of human nature as a means of travel from one person to the next. In this sense the virus is a true monster.”
“It is to say that history turns on unnoticed things. Small, hidden events can have ripple effects, and the ripples can grow. A child touches a bat … a woman riding on a bus bumps against someone who isn’t feeling well … an email gets buried … a patient isn’t found … and suddenly the future arrives.”
“One way to understand viruses is to think about them as biological machines. A virus is a wet nanomachine, a tiny, complicated, slightly fuzzy mechanism, which is rubbery, flexible, wobbly, and often a little bit imprecise in its operation—a microscopic nugget of squishy parts. Viruses are subtle, logical, tricky, reactive, devious, opportunistic. They are constantly evolving, their forms steadily changing as time passes. Like all kinds of life, viruses possess a relentless drive to reproduce themselves so that they can persist through time.”
This book has a slight edge over The Hot Zone IMO, although they're both exceptional nonfiction reads.
Not sure it was particularly wise to read these two back-to-back this month, but they really did put things into perspective.
Thankfully we are not currently facing an Ebola outbreak that averages a BLOODY death toll of between 25-90%.
So on one hand, I'm relieved that the average death rate of the current pandemic is MUCH lower, and way less gory than that of Ebola. On the other hand, the discussion on the infectiousness of viruses and how they are the ultimate killer was pretty stressful.
I'm ready to take a break from Ebola books, that's for sure, although Preston masterfully covers this topic with amazing panache.
*Quotes*
“Ebola virus moves from one person to the next by following the deepest and most personal ties of love, care, and duty that join people to one another and most clearly define us as human. The virus exploits the best parts of human nature as a means of travel from one person to the next. In this sense the virus is a true monster.”
“It is to say that history turns on unnoticed things. Small, hidden events can have ripple effects, and the ripples can grow. A child touches a bat … a woman riding on a bus bumps against someone who isn’t feeling well … an email gets buried … a patient isn’t found … and suddenly the future arrives.”
“One way to understand viruses is to think about them as biological machines. A virus is a wet nanomachine, a tiny, complicated, slightly fuzzy mechanism, which is rubbery, flexible, wobbly, and often a little bit imprecise in its operation—a microscopic nugget of squishy parts. Viruses are subtle, logical, tricky, reactive, devious, opportunistic. They are constantly evolving, their forms steadily changing as time passes. Like all kinds of life, viruses possess a relentless drive to reproduce themselves so that they can persist through time.”
February 5, 2020
With current corona-virus outbreak it's good to get some perspective on other deadly viruses such as Ebola. Did you know that 1.5 millions die annually from TB alone? How about regular flu - around 60 thousands gone last year. When was last time you worried about TB or flu? We are scared of wrong stuff, stuff they show us on TV with "Breaking News" red color frame. Read the book and get information and most important of all things - wash your hands often!
December 21, 2021
The third book in Preston's "Level 4 Agents Trilogy"* tells the story of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa, intertwined Godfather-Part-II-style with the story of the very first Ebola outbreak back in 1976. The tale is chilling in so many ways; the potential for even more devastating outbreaks in Africa where small towns often hide infected people from doctors due to superstitions and mistrust of outsiders, the difficult decisions and moral quandaries faced by doctors in the field who work under incredible pressure, the difficulties faced in developing an effective vaccine for an extremely deadly disease when we don't even know how it jumps from the environment to humans, and worst of all the lack of qualified medical personnel and equipment and facilities to handle a Level 4 outbreak not just in Africa but in every country including the one you live in right now. The three-page epilogue spells out the author's fears that the world is horrifically underprepared for a large-scale Level 4 pandemic, which seemed even more prescient a year later in 2020 when the world went crazy over a virus whose mortality rate lingers around 1.4%.
*Actually, I made that up. but it seems like a good name for The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, The Demon in the Freezer, and this book.
*Actually, I made that up. but it seems like a good name for The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus, The Demon in the Freezer, and this book.
March 21, 2021
Richard Preston has a real knack making non-fiction as gripping as can be. This one tells the story of the 2013/2014 Ebola epidemic. His other book, The Hot Zone, which is also about Ebola, was far better.
I didn’t care for all the chronological jumping around, plus there were far too many characters. This book was still interesting, just not his best.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“A liter of seawater contains more virus particles than any other form of life.”
“Hiccups are a classic sign of Ebola virus disease.”
“Ebola virus moves from one person to the next by following the deepest and most personal ties of love, care, and duty that join people to one another and most clearly define us as human. The virus exploits the best parts of human nature as a means of travel from one person to the next. In this sense the virus is a true monster.”
I didn’t care for all the chronological jumping around, plus there were far too many characters. This book was still interesting, just not his best.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“A liter of seawater contains more virus particles than any other form of life.”
“Hiccups are a classic sign of Ebola virus disease.”
“Ebola virus moves from one person to the next by following the deepest and most personal ties of love, care, and duty that join people to one another and most clearly define us as human. The virus exploits the best parts of human nature as a means of travel from one person to the next. In this sense the virus is a true monster.”
March 1, 2020
Cripes, substitute 'coronavirus' for every mention of ebola, and there you go, that's what happens, that's how you make mistakes, that's how you do - or DO NOT - contain a deadly pandemic.
Okay, I know the two are not remotely the same thing, biologically-speaking, and that one is far worse in terms of deaths, horrible symptoms, difficulty of treatment, and so on, but the methodology for dealing with diseases that spread quickly, easily, and can go from a dozen cases to thousands in just a few weeks, it's all the same.
As well as how it is tracked, how it is best contained, what are the best protocols for dealing with patients and potential spread - it's all the same. I have to believe that some of these same disease experts mentioned - virologists, epidemiologists and a host of medical specialists - are working on the coronavirus 'situation' even as I write.
The book is a step-by-step, chronological study of what happened in Africa during the Ebola crisis of 2014, and how it was contained, if not wiped out altogether. I especially like how some of indigenous people deal with things like this. In some areas they actually put the affected persons - and all family members - in a hut outside the village. They deliver food and water to the family, but no one contacts them directly. If, after a certain time period, the family is well and okay, they are welcomed back into the village. If they are all dead, they burn the hut down.
From a human POV this is horrific, but it works. It's also what we should be doing, putting those affected in a hut - or hospital area - and helping as much as possible, but waiting, too. Oh, darn, several times Mr. Preston mentions how to stop a disease like Ebola we humans have to turn almost into monsters - in order to save all of us. I am reminded of Spock...
Doesn't he say at one time, in order to save us all, we must sometimes sacrifice one - or a few? And don't we do that anyhow, sometimes?
I'm off on a rant which many might not agree with. Doctors Without Borders certainly wouldn't. For them, if you can't save EVERYONE, then better to save no one. Whoops, am I misquoting? I admire these brave men and woman who go into horrendous areas to help the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the hopeless. But when they agree to withhold an experimental drug from a doctor who is willing to be the test case? Their thinking was, if we don't have enough for all, then no one gets it.
Okay, I haven't gone through the whole mind process they have, but this is one area of the book where I went WTF???
However, as usual, Mr. Preston does a fabulous job in describing and explaining Ebola, all the various forms, the methods of treating it and containing it, its genetic basis and history, symptoms etc.; the various new drugs being developed to stop it, and who caught it when and where and how - when such can be determined. He's always a fascinating - and often frightening - read. How timely that it comes out just as the coronavirus gets going...
A suggestion from one doctor deep in the heart of all this: Keep a 30-day supply of food on hand. Yikes!
Five stars.
Okay, I know the two are not remotely the same thing, biologically-speaking, and that one is far worse in terms of deaths, horrible symptoms, difficulty of treatment, and so on, but the methodology for dealing with diseases that spread quickly, easily, and can go from a dozen cases to thousands in just a few weeks, it's all the same.
As well as how it is tracked, how it is best contained, what are the best protocols for dealing with patients and potential spread - it's all the same. I have to believe that some of these same disease experts mentioned - virologists, epidemiologists and a host of medical specialists - are working on the coronavirus 'situation' even as I write.
The book is a step-by-step, chronological study of what happened in Africa during the Ebola crisis of 2014, and how it was contained, if not wiped out altogether. I especially like how some of indigenous people deal with things like this. In some areas they actually put the affected persons - and all family members - in a hut outside the village. They deliver food and water to the family, but no one contacts them directly. If, after a certain time period, the family is well and okay, they are welcomed back into the village. If they are all dead, they burn the hut down.
From a human POV this is horrific, but it works. It's also what we should be doing, putting those affected in a hut - or hospital area - and helping as much as possible, but waiting, too. Oh, darn, several times Mr. Preston mentions how to stop a disease like Ebola we humans have to turn almost into monsters - in order to save all of us. I am reminded of Spock...
Doesn't he say at one time, in order to save us all, we must sometimes sacrifice one - or a few? And don't we do that anyhow, sometimes?
I'm off on a rant which many might not agree with. Doctors Without Borders certainly wouldn't. For them, if you can't save EVERYONE, then better to save no one. Whoops, am I misquoting? I admire these brave men and woman who go into horrendous areas to help the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the hopeless. But when they agree to withhold an experimental drug from a doctor who is willing to be the test case? Their thinking was, if we don't have enough for all, then no one gets it.
Okay, I haven't gone through the whole mind process they have, but this is one area of the book where I went WTF???
However, as usual, Mr. Preston does a fabulous job in describing and explaining Ebola, all the various forms, the methods of treating it and containing it, its genetic basis and history, symptoms etc.; the various new drugs being developed to stop it, and who caught it when and where and how - when such can be determined. He's always a fascinating - and often frightening - read. How timely that it comes out just as the coronavirus gets going...
A suggestion from one doctor deep in the heart of all this: Keep a 30-day supply of food on hand. Yikes!
Five stars.
January 12, 2020
Not as good as the Hot Zone, but definitely worth a read. My main complaint is the amount of repetition. Preston thanks the book’s editor by name, so we know the book had one, but what happened? Perhaps the editor had more pressing responsibilities. My other complaint is that it wasn’t necessary for Preston to meander into the area of scare tactics; Ebola is plenty frightening enough without that. Particularly at the end of the book, he starts with the “what if‘s“, a bunch of questions that no one can answer and we have no way of knowing if we will ever have to face anyway. Had I been the editor, I would’ve left that out.
My main question is why were so many of the Ebola deaths women? There were men who contracted the virus and died from it. But in Africa at least, the majority of the sick were female. Why is that?
My main question is why were so many of the Ebola deaths women? There were men who contracted the virus and died from it. But in Africa at least, the majority of the sick were female. Why is that?
August 23, 2019
I'm not sure what happened here. Maybe they didn't have time for any editing? The story moves ponderously. Maybe that's fine; the details engross us more. But the writing is repetitive—very, very repetitive. It's enough to say a fact once or twice. I don't need to be told 500 times that ZMapp hadn't been tested on humans. Reading pages and pages about a character's inability to make up his mind is also tedious. Finally, I think Preston misses the scope. There is a very narrow central crisis, and a very broad and preachy overview (`we're not prepared for the next epidemic'), but he doesn't actually give a good description of the Ebola outbreak.
July 13, 2019
Having just recently read Richard Preston's hit book The Hot Zone, I was excited to see that he was releasing a follow up dealing with the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2013-2014. I loved The Hot Zone and had even watched the National Geographic miniseries based upon the book. However, I must say I was deeply disappointed in Preston's newest Ebola story.
Crisis in the Red Zone tells the story of the recent spread of Ebola through Africa, particularly in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Starting with the death of a small child, the Ebola virus quickly devastates many small villages and kills hundreds of people. As health officials worldwide become aware of the situation, doctors and scientists are sent in to try and contain the disease before it becomes a global pandemic. Scientists also try to discover the origin of the virus and realize that once it enters humans, the virus spread and mutates at an extraordinary level. Preston delves into the lives of those on the ground in the hot zones, from the doctors and nurses watching as patients suffer horrible deaths, to scientists in labs in the US, searching for answers. Some of these people do not survive the outbreak, and all are changed forever by the horrors they witness in the red zone.
One thing I liked about Preston's book The Hot Zone was his ability to make us care about the people in the two main storylines of that book (the doctors in Zaire and the Jaxxs in Maryland). Again, in this book, Preston gets us to care about the people involved in this crisis; however, there are TOO many people to have to keep up with and care about in this book. He follows many characters, flipping back and forth between their stories from one paragraph to the next, and it makes it very difficult to remember who is who and to keep up with a streamlined narrative for each character. I feel this book would have been much clearer had it followed only a few characters that we can easily track through the entire book rather than quickly bouncing from one character to the next to the next. Preston also goes into significant detail about almost every topic in this book. While I appreciate the detailing of the virus and how it is composed, how it works and how it spreads, not everything that is discussed needs an extended explanation. I feel he gets bogged down in the details, repeating himself numerous times about unimportant facts, and forgets to get back to the main idea; I found myself becoming very bored as I read this book. For a story that is so horrifying and real, the way in which it is presented is meandering, slow-paced, and exhausting.
This book is a scary read, like Preston's other works, and the fact that this story is a true story makes it all the more terrifying. I appreciate Preston bringing this story to light; I just wish it had been done in a more cohesive and thrilling manner.
My thanks to Random House and Netgalley for providing this ARC of Crisis in the Red Zone by Richard Preston.
Rating: ⭐⭐
Crisis in the Red Zone tells the story of the recent spread of Ebola through Africa, particularly in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Starting with the death of a small child, the Ebola virus quickly devastates many small villages and kills hundreds of people. As health officials worldwide become aware of the situation, doctors and scientists are sent in to try and contain the disease before it becomes a global pandemic. Scientists also try to discover the origin of the virus and realize that once it enters humans, the virus spread and mutates at an extraordinary level. Preston delves into the lives of those on the ground in the hot zones, from the doctors and nurses watching as patients suffer horrible deaths, to scientists in labs in the US, searching for answers. Some of these people do not survive the outbreak, and all are changed forever by the horrors they witness in the red zone.
One thing I liked about Preston's book The Hot Zone was his ability to make us care about the people in the two main storylines of that book (the doctors in Zaire and the Jaxxs in Maryland). Again, in this book, Preston gets us to care about the people involved in this crisis; however, there are TOO many people to have to keep up with and care about in this book. He follows many characters, flipping back and forth between their stories from one paragraph to the next, and it makes it very difficult to remember who is who and to keep up with a streamlined narrative for each character. I feel this book would have been much clearer had it followed only a few characters that we can easily track through the entire book rather than quickly bouncing from one character to the next to the next. Preston also goes into significant detail about almost every topic in this book. While I appreciate the detailing of the virus and how it is composed, how it works and how it spreads, not everything that is discussed needs an extended explanation. I feel he gets bogged down in the details, repeating himself numerous times about unimportant facts, and forgets to get back to the main idea; I found myself becoming very bored as I read this book. For a story that is so horrifying and real, the way in which it is presented is meandering, slow-paced, and exhausting.
This book is a scary read, like Preston's other works, and the fact that this story is a true story makes it all the more terrifying. I appreciate Preston bringing this story to light; I just wish it had been done in a more cohesive and thrilling manner.
My thanks to Random House and Netgalley for providing this ARC of Crisis in the Red Zone by Richard Preston.
Rating: ⭐⭐
July 22, 2019
I read The Hot Zone over a decade ago, and I instantly fell in love with Richard Preston’s writing. As someone who has always loved science, especially virology, Ebola was always the virus that I found to be the most fascinating and also most terrifying. It’s one of the simplest viruses (as contagious as the common cold), it has the capacity to cross-species jump and evolve, and it completely decimates the human immune system in just 7-10 days (something that takes YEARS for HIV to do). That being said, I have always dreamt of becoming an epidemiologist for the CDC and working in the Hazmat suits on Biosafety Level 4. When I found out that he was doing a follow up to my beloved The Hot Zone, I couldn’t request the book fast enough!
Richard Preston does an incredible job of immersing you into the gruesome reality of Ebola outbreaks. He doesn’t spare you the gorey details. When The Hot Zone was first released in 1994, the seriousness of the Ebola virus did not really register for many Americans since it was a virus that was mostly confined to Africa, and there wasn’t widespread media coverage in the 1970s to really highlight the grim reality. The recent outbreak in 2014, brought Ebola into international spotlight, and The Crisis in the Red Zone provides the details that the media outlets did not have access to.
Preston is able to humanize Ebola. He is able to take the medical and scientific jargon surrounding viruses as a whole and make them digestible to all audiences. He recounts stories of medical workers who attempted to save patients and their horrifying experiences in the Ebola wards. (If medical procedures and bodily fluids that are described in painstaking detail make you queasy, this will most definitely not be for you.) The story alternates between the original 1976 outbreak to the 2014 outbreak to answer what has been learned about Ebola and its evolution during that time period.
Overall, this was another fantastic piece by Richard Preston that gives even more insight into this virus as well as provides hope for a future where we are ultimately able to eradicate this virus once and for all.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an eARC. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.
4.5/5 stars, rounded up!
Richard Preston does an incredible job of immersing you into the gruesome reality of Ebola outbreaks. He doesn’t spare you the gorey details. When The Hot Zone was first released in 1994, the seriousness of the Ebola virus did not really register for many Americans since it was a virus that was mostly confined to Africa, and there wasn’t widespread media coverage in the 1970s to really highlight the grim reality. The recent outbreak in 2014, brought Ebola into international spotlight, and The Crisis in the Red Zone provides the details that the media outlets did not have access to.
Preston is able to humanize Ebola. He is able to take the medical and scientific jargon surrounding viruses as a whole and make them digestible to all audiences. He recounts stories of medical workers who attempted to save patients and their horrifying experiences in the Ebola wards. (If medical procedures and bodily fluids that are described in painstaking detail make you queasy, this will most definitely not be for you.) The story alternates between the original 1976 outbreak to the 2014 outbreak to answer what has been learned about Ebola and its evolution during that time period.
Overall, this was another fantastic piece by Richard Preston that gives even more insight into this virus as well as provides hope for a future where we are ultimately able to eradicate this virus once and for all.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an eARC. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.
4.5/5 stars, rounded up!
January 19, 2020
RR Rating: 3 gag-inducing stars
Format: Audiobook, 13 hrs 2 mins, narrated by Ray Porter, pub. 7/23/19
RR Synopsis: People get, spread, research, and fight Ebola, and it’s gross.
RR POV: THE HOT ZONE has a tighter narrative and kept my attention better, but as a fan of biomedical nonfiction I’ll still give it a thumbs up.
Recommended Readers: Those who’ve read Preston’s THE HOT ZONE and just can’t get enough Ebola.
Pro tip: Speaking from experience, listeners of the audiobook will want to avoid cooking or eating at the same time… particularly black bean soup.
Format: Audiobook, 13 hrs 2 mins, narrated by Ray Porter, pub. 7/23/19
RR Synopsis: People get, spread, research, and fight Ebola, and it’s gross.
RR POV: THE HOT ZONE has a tighter narrative and kept my attention better, but as a fan of biomedical nonfiction I’ll still give it a thumbs up.
Recommended Readers: Those who’ve read Preston’s THE HOT ZONE and just can’t get enough Ebola.
Pro tip: Speaking from experience, listeners of the audiobook will want to avoid cooking or eating at the same time… particularly black bean soup.
October 1, 2020
This book is the sequel to The Hot Zone. Although both books deal with the Ebola virus it is my opinion that it would be very wise to read both. With the current COVID pandemic there are a lot of lessons to be learned from the past.
January 11, 2021
I'd been wanting to read this book ever since it came out in late 2019. In March 2020 when all these rumours about a total lockdown in Germany started I decided that, should it really happen, I'd buy Crisis in the Red Zone, just to make lockdown feel a bit better (yeah, a book about a deadly virus will make you feel better during a global pandemic..right??)
The book tells the story of the 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak in equatorial Africa. Ist main focus lies on a small under-resourced hospital that had to somehow cope with the majority of the victims and the ensuing international effort to contain the virus. It's not so much about the virus itself (although you do get a lot of information about it too), but the people involved and the physical, ethical and emotional problems that arise during such a calamitous outbreak.
As with his previous book, The Hot Zone, I had to remind myself constantly that I'm not reading a thriller but an account of real events, real people and great suffering. He's writing style is so immersive and engaging that I completely lost track of time while reading. I enjoyed the book … well, as much as it's possible to enjoy a terrifying book like this.
Would highly recommend!
The book tells the story of the 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak in equatorial Africa. Ist main focus lies on a small under-resourced hospital that had to somehow cope with the majority of the victims and the ensuing international effort to contain the virus. It's not so much about the virus itself (although you do get a lot of information about it too), but the people involved and the physical, ethical and emotional problems that arise during such a calamitous outbreak.
As with his previous book, The Hot Zone, I had to remind myself constantly that I'm not reading a thriller but an account of real events, real people and great suffering. He's writing style is so immersive and engaging that I completely lost track of time while reading. I enjoyed the book … well, as much as it's possible to enjoy a terrifying book like this.
Would highly recommend!
January 10, 2020
Perhaps not as gripping as some of his other books on plagues, this one still carried the relevant gravitas to continue pushing the story forward and make the reader wonder what was going to happen next. As with a lot of modern news there’s a bit of a flash in the pan effect. Big story one day disappears days later because something else comes up. I remember a flare up of Ebola in the United States years back and some people vanishing into quarantine for treatment at the NIH; thereafter the story seemed to fade. So this book explains what happened and how it came to be, with a whole host of those who died along the way as well as emerging treatments for Ebola. Mankind just trying to stay one step ahead. Fascinating read.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1645808644i%2F7494844._UX200_CR0%2C6%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
May 6, 2020
Full RTC—why oh why did I listen to this in the middle of a pandemic???
December 17, 2022
My life is littered with contradictions, but one of the most perplexing is the fact that though my OCD makes me a hypochondriac, I simultaneously have a morbid fascination with deadly diseases. Said morbid fascination has led me to reading Richard Preston's books, and concluding to stay as far away from bats as possible.
Crisis in the Red Zone chronicles the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa. Preston makes the book engaging while remaining tasteful and doing the book's subject justice. He tells the story of several doctors and scientists who were on the front lines of the epidemic and all of the challenges they faced to save the lives of their patients.
I previously never considered the ethical conflicts the healthcare professionals had to navigate with the use of untested medicine, triaging care, etc. And of course the biggest takeaway this book left me with was an increased respect (and fear) of the natural world. Like usual I am reminded of humanity's powerlessness in the face of mother nature's whims, and I kind of want to start wearing a mask more often just in case a new virus jumps species. Again.
During the coronavirus pandemic, as much as it sucked, I found myself thinking about how it would have been so much worse if it had been a disease that was worse than coronavirus. And I'm still kinda worried about that tbh. Imagine a pandemic of Ebola. Alarming
Crisis in the Red Zone chronicles the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa. Preston makes the book engaging while remaining tasteful and doing the book's subject justice. He tells the story of several doctors and scientists who were on the front lines of the epidemic and all of the challenges they faced to save the lives of their patients.
I previously never considered the ethical conflicts the healthcare professionals had to navigate with the use of untested medicine, triaging care, etc. And of course the biggest takeaway this book left me with was an increased respect (and fear) of the natural world. Like usual I am reminded of humanity's powerlessness in the face of mother nature's whims, and I kind of want to start wearing a mask more often just in case a new virus jumps species. Again.
During the coronavirus pandemic, as much as it sucked, I found myself thinking about how it would have been so much worse if it had been a disease that was worse than coronavirus. And I'm still kinda worried about that tbh. Imagine a pandemic of Ebola. Alarming
April 28, 2021
Nach "The Hot Zone" wollte ich jetzt auch noch wissen, wie die Ebola-Geschichte weitergeht (dieses Buch ist 20 Jahre neuer). Es ist weniger sensationalistisch als das erste, aber immer noch ziemlich interessant. Auf eine seltsame Art ist es beruhigend, mitten in einer Pandemie darüber zu lesen, dass man noch ganz andere Probleme haben könnte. Aber dann auch wieder nicht, denn im Nachhinein denke ich, ich hatte einfach mein Leben lang überhaupt keine Vorstellung von den Problemen mit Infektionskrankheiten. Wie so viele Themen hatte ich sie irgendwie für ein kurioses, überwundenes Ding von früher gehalten, und das, obwohl ich 2019 fürs "Handbuch für Zeitreisende" selbst das Gegenteil recherchiert, aufgeschrieben und in Interviews gesagt habe.
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