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The Helpers: Profiles from the Front Lines of the Pandemic
A deeply moving narrative of the coronavirus pandemic, told through portraits of eight individuals who worked tirelessly to help others.
In March 2020, COVID-19 overtook the United States, and life changed for America. In a matter of weeks the virus impacted millions, with lockdown measures radically reshaping the lives of even those who did not become infected. Yet despite the fear, hardship, and heartbreak from this period of collective struggle, there was hope.
In The Helpers, journalist Kathy Gilsinan profiles eight individuals on the front lines of the coronavirus a devoted son caring for his family in the San Francisco Bay Area; a not-quite-retired paramedic from Colorado; an ICU nurse in the Bronx; the CEO of a Seattle-based ventilator company; a vaccine researcher at Moderna in Boston; a young chef and culinary teacher in Louisville, Kentucky; a physician in Chicago; and a funeral home director in Seattle and Los Angeles. These inspiring individual accounts create an unforgettable tapestry of how people across the country and the socioeconomic spectrum came together to fight the most deadly pandemic in a century.
Beautifully written and profoundly moving, The Helpers is about ordinary people who stepped up to meet an extraordinary moment. “This is the story of how we beat the pandemic,” Gilsinan writes, “but I hope that it someday serves as an introduction to the story of how we made a better country. That future starts with people like the ones in this book.”
In March 2020, COVID-19 overtook the United States, and life changed for America. In a matter of weeks the virus impacted millions, with lockdown measures radically reshaping the lives of even those who did not become infected. Yet despite the fear, hardship, and heartbreak from this period of collective struggle, there was hope.
In The Helpers, journalist Kathy Gilsinan profiles eight individuals on the front lines of the coronavirus a devoted son caring for his family in the San Francisco Bay Area; a not-quite-retired paramedic from Colorado; an ICU nurse in the Bronx; the CEO of a Seattle-based ventilator company; a vaccine researcher at Moderna in Boston; a young chef and culinary teacher in Louisville, Kentucky; a physician in Chicago; and a funeral home director in Seattle and Los Angeles. These inspiring individual accounts create an unforgettable tapestry of how people across the country and the socioeconomic spectrum came together to fight the most deadly pandemic in a century.
Beautifully written and profoundly moving, The Helpers is about ordinary people who stepped up to meet an extraordinary moment. “This is the story of how we beat the pandemic,” Gilsinan writes, “but I hope that it someday serves as an introduction to the story of how we made a better country. That future starts with people like the ones in this book.”
- GenresNonfictionMedical
310 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2022
4 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 6, 2022
Probably a 4.5 for me personally. I was wary of reading a book about the pandemic while we're still in it. But I learned a lot from this one.
I think, since it's an experience all of us went through together, there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of untold stories like these that went unheard during that first year because we were all wrapped up in our own personal drama at the time.
I am grateful the author choose to capture that moment in time, when "we suffered on a grand scale and coped on a small one" and selected these particular stories.
The book follows only a handful of characters interspersing and revisiting their stories as the pandemic progresses. In some ways, this is a frustrating artistic choice. Just when you're getting into someone's story, you switch to another one. This also means that if one of the stories doesn't quite grip you, you're out of luck. It'll still take up a chunk of the book. But overall, the selection of characters/circumstances showed nice range and gave us a solid snapshot of the pandemic.
I think the author really hit the nail on the head with these words: "As much as this book is about individual heroism, it is also by implication an indictment of the institutions that left them unsupported or unprotected, and whose failures made so much of their courage necessary in the first place."
This is NOT a political book (I'm sure those are being written too). It focuses on the actions of ordinary Americans and how they helped the rest of the country, without getting too much into the headlines at the time. I appreciated this choice, although I remain sad and angry that so many had to lead the charge while being so unsupported.
While we're still in this pandemic, inundated with stories of people's bad behavior and refusal to protect others, I really needed the reminder from this book that, "most Americans reported practicing social distancing and wore masks to leave the home, making millions of difficult, boring, unglamorous decision to protect their neighbors, adding up to an act of mass kindness."
Add this book to the list of things to file under that "mass kindness." I found it hopeful, inspiring, and educational. Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
I think, since it's an experience all of us went through together, there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of untold stories like these that went unheard during that first year because we were all wrapped up in our own personal drama at the time.
I am grateful the author choose to capture that moment in time, when "we suffered on a grand scale and coped on a small one" and selected these particular stories.
The book follows only a handful of characters interspersing and revisiting their stories as the pandemic progresses. In some ways, this is a frustrating artistic choice. Just when you're getting into someone's story, you switch to another one. This also means that if one of the stories doesn't quite grip you, you're out of luck. It'll still take up a chunk of the book. But overall, the selection of characters/circumstances showed nice range and gave us a solid snapshot of the pandemic.
I think the author really hit the nail on the head with these words: "As much as this book is about individual heroism, it is also by implication an indictment of the institutions that left them unsupported or unprotected, and whose failures made so much of their courage necessary in the first place."
This is NOT a political book (I'm sure those are being written too). It focuses on the actions of ordinary Americans and how they helped the rest of the country, without getting too much into the headlines at the time. I appreciated this choice, although I remain sad and angry that so many had to lead the charge while being so unsupported.
While we're still in this pandemic, inundated with stories of people's bad behavior and refusal to protect others, I really needed the reminder from this book that, "most Americans reported practicing social distancing and wore masks to leave the home, making millions of difficult, boring, unglamorous decision to protect their neighbors, adding up to an act of mass kindness."
Add this book to the list of things to file under that "mass kindness." I found it hopeful, inspiring, and educational. Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
November 28, 2021
I received an ARC of The Helpers, by Kathy Gilsinan. This book was good, but I found it to be too clinical at times. More textbook then novel.
May 11, 2022
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
― Fred Rogers
The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 was a novel, surprising event that caught an entire world off guard, and continues to surprise us. Most of those alive had never had to deal with a potentially deadly disease rapidly spreading through communities, and Covid-19 brought out both the best and worst of humanity in its wake. Unfortunately, most of what we saw on television was the worst part- people throwing tantrums about wearing masks, politicians and pundits that tried to make the disease political for their own gains, and social media and alternative television that readily spread fake cures and disinformation about the pandemic in the search for clicks and viewers. A scary disease that no one quite knows how to handle is much less interesting than a conspiracy of Chinese scientists and wealthy elites trying to pull one over on us.
But the pandemic brought so many more good stories of bravery, selflessness, and love that rarely got told. This book, The Helpers, tells some of those stories. Wonderful, admirable people including first responders, medical professionals, essential workers, and scientists are the real story of the pandemic, and by recognizing them we honor their service and sacrifice. Humans are unfortunately wired to give preference to negative information- a throwback to the days on the savannah when ignoring bad news meant death. But with so much bad news out there now, giving preference to good news and inspiring stories is just as important for mental and spiritual survival today.
Kathy Gilsinan is a St. Louis-based writer for the Atlantic, and this is her first book. She profiles six extraordinary individuals and how the pandemic brought out the best of them. The book covers three sections denoting the beginning, middle, and end of the pandemic and you get to follow each person as things go from bad to worse.
- There's the retired firefighter Paul Cary who drove from Colorado to New York city during the first deadly wave of the pandemic. He was a volunteer who transported deathly ill Covid patients from one overcrowded hospital to lesser crowded ones, eventually getting Covid himself and dying.
- Hamilton Bennett tells her story of how she and Moderna came to develop one of the first Covid vaccines, taking on a new technology and plenty of financial risk at the start of the pandemic. The process that normally takes years was completed in less than one, and countless lives were saved by the vaccine developers who found ways around the virus and its deadly capabilities.
- Chris Kiple was the CEO of a small ventilator company called Ventec. When the pandemic caused extreme damage to lungs, ventilators became essential and also in critically short supply. Kiple and his team built a new factory from scratch that made precious life-saving ventilators, while automobile maker General Motors turned out to be a surprising hero in his story.
- Michelle Gonzalez tells the harrowing story of what it was like to be a nurse in the front lines of the pandemic. Nurses are the true heroes of this book, as they risked exposure to a deadly disease to make sure that their patients had a chance. Nurses had to deal with terrible shortages of medicines and protective equipment, and they had to watch helplessly as the virus claimed patient after patient, including some of the hospital staff as well. And at the end of her story she has a few things to say about a hospital management that fell short during the crisis.
- Nikkia Rhodes was just 23 when the pandemic began- a chef and schoolteacher in a poor area of Louisville. She remarkably stepped up to help her students, and then opened up a community kitchen in an area where so many families had been hit hard by hunger and unemployment. And she did this all while racial protests consumed Louisville in the wake of Breonna Taylor's tragic shooting.
- And finally there's the story of Huy Le, one of the first victims of the virus from California, and how he tried to understand what was happening to him while worrying about his sick mother, who eventually died alone from Covid. Le went into a coma and relied on a ventilator to keep him alive, but he survived, and you see the disease through his eyes.
Stories make the abstract seem more real, and to read these stories and see the bravery of those who lived them is much more inspiring than what we saw on the news and on social media during the pandemic. The Covid epidemic wasn't a conspiracy, and there's no one to blame but ourselves and Mother Nature for its deadly toll. Many precious lives were lost, and many foolish things were said and done. But in the end the helpers found us a vaccine, kept society going, and did what needed to be done. As the author puts it:
“In place of victory is ongoing struggle, never finished, never enough. You can never save enough people, you can never make or distribute a vaccine fast enough or convince enough people to take it, you can never feed all of the hungry. But there are people who look those odds in the eye and try anyway.”
I think of these six people as I read the news from the latest tragedy- the war in Ukraine. Terrible, senseless things have happened there, but most of the Ukrainian people have stepped up to help each other and combat the enemy that tries to destroy them. When the Blitz hit Great Britain during World War II, the citizens of London and beyond stepped up and helped each other survive another day. There's a strong instinct inside humanity to be a helper, but it fights against the demons of selfishness and fear all of the time. Reading a book like this makes my dramas seem pretty small by comparison and makes me want to help more and complain less.
― Fred Rogers
The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 was a novel, surprising event that caught an entire world off guard, and continues to surprise us. Most of those alive had never had to deal with a potentially deadly disease rapidly spreading through communities, and Covid-19 brought out both the best and worst of humanity in its wake. Unfortunately, most of what we saw on television was the worst part- people throwing tantrums about wearing masks, politicians and pundits that tried to make the disease political for their own gains, and social media and alternative television that readily spread fake cures and disinformation about the pandemic in the search for clicks and viewers. A scary disease that no one quite knows how to handle is much less interesting than a conspiracy of Chinese scientists and wealthy elites trying to pull one over on us.
But the pandemic brought so many more good stories of bravery, selflessness, and love that rarely got told. This book, The Helpers, tells some of those stories. Wonderful, admirable people including first responders, medical professionals, essential workers, and scientists are the real story of the pandemic, and by recognizing them we honor their service and sacrifice. Humans are unfortunately wired to give preference to negative information- a throwback to the days on the savannah when ignoring bad news meant death. But with so much bad news out there now, giving preference to good news and inspiring stories is just as important for mental and spiritual survival today.
Kathy Gilsinan is a St. Louis-based writer for the Atlantic, and this is her first book. She profiles six extraordinary individuals and how the pandemic brought out the best of them. The book covers three sections denoting the beginning, middle, and end of the pandemic and you get to follow each person as things go from bad to worse.
- There's the retired firefighter Paul Cary who drove from Colorado to New York city during the first deadly wave of the pandemic. He was a volunteer who transported deathly ill Covid patients from one overcrowded hospital to lesser crowded ones, eventually getting Covid himself and dying.
- Hamilton Bennett tells her story of how she and Moderna came to develop one of the first Covid vaccines, taking on a new technology and plenty of financial risk at the start of the pandemic. The process that normally takes years was completed in less than one, and countless lives were saved by the vaccine developers who found ways around the virus and its deadly capabilities.
- Chris Kiple was the CEO of a small ventilator company called Ventec. When the pandemic caused extreme damage to lungs, ventilators became essential and also in critically short supply. Kiple and his team built a new factory from scratch that made precious life-saving ventilators, while automobile maker General Motors turned out to be a surprising hero in his story.
- Michelle Gonzalez tells the harrowing story of what it was like to be a nurse in the front lines of the pandemic. Nurses are the true heroes of this book, as they risked exposure to a deadly disease to make sure that their patients had a chance. Nurses had to deal with terrible shortages of medicines and protective equipment, and they had to watch helplessly as the virus claimed patient after patient, including some of the hospital staff as well. And at the end of her story she has a few things to say about a hospital management that fell short during the crisis.
- Nikkia Rhodes was just 23 when the pandemic began- a chef and schoolteacher in a poor area of Louisville. She remarkably stepped up to help her students, and then opened up a community kitchen in an area where so many families had been hit hard by hunger and unemployment. And she did this all while racial protests consumed Louisville in the wake of Breonna Taylor's tragic shooting.
- And finally there's the story of Huy Le, one of the first victims of the virus from California, and how he tried to understand what was happening to him while worrying about his sick mother, who eventually died alone from Covid. Le went into a coma and relied on a ventilator to keep him alive, but he survived, and you see the disease through his eyes.
Stories make the abstract seem more real, and to read these stories and see the bravery of those who lived them is much more inspiring than what we saw on the news and on social media during the pandemic. The Covid epidemic wasn't a conspiracy, and there's no one to blame but ourselves and Mother Nature for its deadly toll. Many precious lives were lost, and many foolish things were said and done. But in the end the helpers found us a vaccine, kept society going, and did what needed to be done. As the author puts it:
“In place of victory is ongoing struggle, never finished, never enough. You can never save enough people, you can never make or distribute a vaccine fast enough or convince enough people to take it, you can never feed all of the hungry. But there are people who look those odds in the eye and try anyway.”
I think of these six people as I read the news from the latest tragedy- the war in Ukraine. Terrible, senseless things have happened there, but most of the Ukrainian people have stepped up to help each other and combat the enemy that tries to destroy them. When the Blitz hit Great Britain during World War II, the citizens of London and beyond stepped up and helped each other survive another day. There's a strong instinct inside humanity to be a helper, but it fights against the demons of selfishness and fear all of the time. Reading a book like this makes my dramas seem pretty small by comparison and makes me want to help more and complain less.
June 4, 2023
A really powerful and poignant book - a nurse, a chef, a paramedic, a vaccine developer and a Bay Area family as they face Covid and 2020. All of their stories were special - but especially appreciated Hanilton’s for the inside look at the vaccine development process.
January 29, 2022
Kathy Gilsinan has done an incredible job of depicting the humanity of the Covid pandemic by profiling several Helpers during the early months and over a year of the pandemic. Proactive and extensive research in developing and safely producing vaccines. The unlikely partnership between a ventilator manufacturer and auto manufacturer. Exhausted healthcare professionals dealing with increased patient numbers and not enough supplies, medications, equipment to care for them. When schools and restaurants were shut down, a cooking instructor changed direction to have her students cook for those in need. An ambulance driver from Colorado who goes to New York to help ferry patients and equipment. The funeral director who must deal with the deaths of so many Covid patients and having to turn away families, all while his own family is growing. So many helpers!
Individuals and families are dealing with uncertainty and fear, as the Covid virus takes hold and spreads. In the midst of the pandemic devastation, this book reminds us of the determination and resilience of people and companies to work together for the common good, to do what’s right. That makes me hopeful.
Thank you, Net Galley, for the opportunity to read this advance copy. I encourage everyone to read The Helpers. I have already preordered my own copy.
Individuals and families are dealing with uncertainty and fear, as the Covid virus takes hold and spreads. In the midst of the pandemic devastation, this book reminds us of the determination and resilience of people and companies to work together for the common good, to do what’s right. That makes me hopeful.
Thank you, Net Galley, for the opportunity to read this advance copy. I encourage everyone to read The Helpers. I have already preordered my own copy.
March 3, 2022
I wasn't sure if I was ready to read a book about the pandemic, but I ended up reading this book cover to cover in a day. The focus of the book is not everything that went wrong, but on the thoroughly decent Americans who did the best that they could in a terrible situation.
I'd put this book alongside Michael Lewis's "The Premonition" or Gregory Zuckerman's "A Shot to Save the World" as the trifecta of truly great, deeply researched accounts of the first two years of the pandemic in the United States. But what sets this book apart from the other two is that it doesn't just cover the scientists or government officials involved in trying to avert or end the pandemic, but also covers ordinary people like a nurse, ambulance driver, a funeral home director, a Vietnamese immigrant, and a community organizer (and yes, also a CEO and Moderna employee). It provided the final chapter to a few stories that were covered at the beginning of the pandemic–what happened with those ventilators that GM was making? what happened with all those ambulances that volunteered to come to New York City?
The stories are gripping, moving, occasionally tragic, but ultimately uplifting. This book was a reminder that people are generally good and have more in common than we often think. It was exactly what I needed to read. Highly recommend.
I'd put this book alongside Michael Lewis's "The Premonition" or Gregory Zuckerman's "A Shot to Save the World" as the trifecta of truly great, deeply researched accounts of the first two years of the pandemic in the United States. But what sets this book apart from the other two is that it doesn't just cover the scientists or government officials involved in trying to avert or end the pandemic, but also covers ordinary people like a nurse, ambulance driver, a funeral home director, a Vietnamese immigrant, and a community organizer (and yes, also a CEO and Moderna employee). It provided the final chapter to a few stories that were covered at the beginning of the pandemic–what happened with those ventilators that GM was making? what happened with all those ambulances that volunteered to come to New York City?
The stories are gripping, moving, occasionally tragic, but ultimately uplifting. This book was a reminder that people are generally good and have more in common than we often think. It was exactly what I needed to read. Highly recommend.
May 21, 2022
This is definitely the most optimistic book I've read about the ongoing pandemic. It was uplifting to read about the heroic individuals who put their lives on the line to help others. Many of them dropped everything and risked everything in their efforts to save lives. The author doesn't lose track of the systemic failures that made these heroic sacrifices necessary, but the focus is on the people who were doing the work. I thought the organization of the story was very effective, with chronological glimpses of each of the six protagonists' stories at the beginning, middle, and end of the first wave of cases. The author seems to have really done the work to get to know these people. We got intimate glimpses of their work and the rest of their lives from their perspective and the perspectives of those closest to them. This wasn't hard-hitting journalism and I didn't learn much I didn't know, but it was an incredible, heart-warming personal look at some real heroes. I enjoyed it very much.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
February 15, 2023
Boy I wish I had the guts to send this book to people who absolutely need to read it: the friends & family members who think they’re smarter than scientists & doctors & have refused to do the right thing (whether that be the vaccine, masking up, or just being cautious with gatherings in general) at any point during the pandemic. Selfish Americans made this pandemic so much worse and I am mad all over again at people who partied during COVID or who refused to get vaccinated despite all the science in the world telling them they’re being dim. Hundreds of thousands of lives could’ve been saved.
This story shared so much about the hard work vaccine developers, ICU nurses, paramedics & others performed selflessly in the height of the tragedy & trauma of the pandemic. We owe so much to those people & have failed them in the years since through low pay or silly debates. Sigh. Hard not to feel hopeless for the future of America when you see how much we’ve squandered the amazing advances made in science during the pandemic.
This story shared so much about the hard work vaccine developers, ICU nurses, paramedics & others performed selflessly in the height of the tragedy & trauma of the pandemic. We owe so much to those people & have failed them in the years since through low pay or silly debates. Sigh. Hard not to feel hopeless for the future of America when you see how much we’ve squandered the amazing advances made in science during the pandemic.
December 3, 2021
The Helpers is exactly the book I’ve been waiting for. As gruesome as it sounds, ever since the pandemic hit I’ve been wondering how it would impact literature and waiting for books to be printed to commemorate this painfully-long moment in our collective history. This novel follows several stories of front line workers and their families as they each experience aspects of the pandemic. Some aspect of the story is likely to be relatable to most readers and other aspects will enlighten you and fill you in on what your neighbours, coworkers or friends were probably dealing with. It was extremely detailed and informative while also very personal and story-like. My only disappointment was that I wasn’t prepared when it suddenly ended! This is in part due to reading it on a device and not realizing the remaining sections were citations etc. I thought this was a very good book and am so thankful to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book early!
February 28, 2022
I hesitated to start reading this book, as we have just started our third year of living, pandemic style, and I have become very weary, but I enjoyed it.
Such a touching collection of stories from very different people, coming from different perspectives. If we are tired of the pandemic right now, how very frightening it was back in the early days when people didn't know very much about it and there was no vaccine.....so grateful for the vaccine.
My heart broke for the family members who passed away as a direct result of this horrible virus and a lot of respect for those who ran TOWARDS the fire (metaphorically speaking) instead of away from it.
There are still lots of very good people in the world, thankfully.
4.5 stars from me.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company.
Such a touching collection of stories from very different people, coming from different perspectives. If we are tired of the pandemic right now, how very frightening it was back in the early days when people didn't know very much about it and there was no vaccine.....so grateful for the vaccine.
My heart broke for the family members who passed away as a direct result of this horrible virus and a lot of respect for those who ran TOWARDS the fire (metaphorically speaking) instead of away from it.
There are still lots of very good people in the world, thankfully.
4.5 stars from me.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company.
October 28, 2021
A good insight to what American covid was like, very different to Britain due to the size of the US the approach and the feelings of the individuals is very different to the UK. The book mainly focused on one family and this would be good to understand how it impacted and they felt. This might be good for the future for people who can’t remember what specifically they felt or saw, a national event that will be remembered forever. The vaccine development was interesting and had good potential but I felt this lacked specific focus and maybe it will be written separately. A decent attempt at medical non fiction.
April 9, 2022
I enjoyed this book....it profiles several people who were 'helpers' during the Covid-19 pandemic, for instance... a nurse, a paramedic, a chef, a mortician, a scientist working on the vaccine, a CEO & a patient. I thought it did a good job of recapping some of the mood of the country/attitudes at that time, & reminded me of different happenings/events during that period. I experienced a lot of 'oh yeah, I remember that...' while reading this book. It's a good book, easy to read.....& I even enjoyed the acknowledgments at the end!
I received this e-ARC from publisher W.W. Norton & Company via NetGalley, in return for reading it & posting my own fair/honest review.
I received this e-ARC from publisher W.W. Norton & Company via NetGalley, in return for reading it & posting my own fair/honest review.
March 12, 2022
A well balanced story sharing the horrors of the 1st year of the pandemic. what we lost while also reminding us of humanity-shining a light on the way through. The start of healing told through an author that can piece powerful & moving vignettes from her interviews. It shows the force & power of Gilsinan’s previous long form journalist path. May we all be inspired from this book to turn to our community & help.
June 23, 2023
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. It tells the story of several "regular" people whose lives are impacted by the pandemic. It also tells stories of healthcare workers, vaccine developers, respirator builders, and more. The stories are entwined together, so you cut in and out of each one, which made for an engaging read. The book had a lot of details, which made it stronger in that it rang true - nothing was glossed over.
November 5, 2021
Stories taken from interviews of several different people who faced the initial Covid-19 emergency in the U.S. There is an ICU nurse, an entire family who contracts Covid-19 in varying degrees of severity; one of the scientists who invented the Moderna vaccine, a first responder on the verge of retirement who travels across the country to aid NYC's overwhelm, a manufacturer of ventilators.
The stories alternate, and we follow the individuals and their families through their vantage point of the 2020-21 epidemic.
Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.
The stories alternate, and we follow the individuals and their families through their vantage point of the 2020-21 epidemic.
Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews