The Viral Underclass

By Steven W. Thrasher

Book Overview

**LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION**
**LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALS FOR EXCELLENCE**
**WINNER OF THE 2022 POZ AWARD FOR BEST IN LITERATURE**

*Sarah Schulman named The Viral Underclass one of the Best Books of the 21st Century for the New York Times*

"An irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the barbarities of class...readers are gifted that most precious of things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the world."
--Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society.

Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone.

Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings. In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, The Viral Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing the fraught relationship between privilege and survival.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250796636
• ISBN13: 9781250796639
• Release Date: August 2022
• Publisher: Celadon Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Well-written, fascinating, phenomenal and necessary

The Viral Underclass is a fascinating, well-written, phenomenal and necessary book detailing how inequality, poverty, racism and homophobia intersect with the transmission and effects of viruses, particularly HIV and COVID-19. Dr. Thrasher uses data, meticulous research, personal stories and examples of real people to show how the "viral underclass", people who are seen as disposable by society, suffer higher risks of sickness and death from the ravages of viral infection. Capitalist societal structural factors such as carceral, housing, public health and immigration policies, lack of universal health care, prejudice and inequality are discussed in relation to viral spread and treatment. Dr. Thrasher is critical of politicians and policies from both parties that have worsened the suffering of society's most vulnerable people. This book was empathetic, eye-opening, tragic and highly readable. Thank you to Celadon Books for an advanced reader copy. @celadonbooks #TheViralUnderclass, #CeladonReads #partner