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Unmasked is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when a collective turn from the coronavirus to the economy occurred in the COVID summer of 2020. State political failures, local negotiations among political and public health leaders, and community (dis)belief about the virus resulted in Okoboji being declared a hotspot just before the Independence Day weekend, when an influx of half a million people visit the town.
The story is both personal and political. Author Emily Mendenhall, an anthropologist at Georgetown University, grew up in Okoboji, and her family still lives there. As the events unfolded, Mendenhall was in Okoboji, where she spoke formally with over 100 people and observed a community that rejected public health guidance, revealing deep-seated mistrust in outsiders and strong commitments to local thinking. Unmasked is a fascinating and heartbreaking account of where people put their trust, and how isolationist popular beliefs can be in America's small communities.
PRAISE FOR UNMASKED
"Unmasked is a breathtakingly brilliant portrait of the ways that communities define boundaries in the face of a pandemic in which threats come from afar and from within. Emily Mendenhall’s remarkable analytic and ethnographic narration takes readers on a journey that is at once local and global, empathic and infuriating, personal and highly political. The result is a remarkable work that challenges what we think we know about the American response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and about the broader tensions of viruses, histories, people and ideology that the pandemic exposed. Along the way, the book asks two vital questions: How do we care for each other? And, more urgently, How can we afford not to? Unmasked will surely become one of the more important works to chronicle how we came to understand ourselves and our discontents during this terrifying moment in human history. Read it now, and then save it to reference how we got here, and what we did about it." - Jonathan Metzl, author of Dying of Whiteness
“An essential read for understanding these increasingly disunited states. Mendenhall artfully unravels and interrogates the complex, layered histories and ideologies underpinning belief in science and trust in institutions.” —Dr. Seema Yasmin, author of Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall For Them
"Emily Mendenhall uses the eye of a medical anthropologist and the ear of an insider to explore the reaction of her conservative hometown in Northwest Iowa to the COVID-19 outbreak. Culture, politics, and public health play out on the shores of the Iowa Great Lakes, a summer fun spot and super-spreader center that drew tens of thousands during the 2020 season." —Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times
"Emily Mendenhall's new book Unmasked is simply a masterpiece. She takes us on a deeply personal journey set in her hometown in West Lake Okoboji, Iowa. Prof Mendenhall sublimely weaves together culture, behavior, society, and politics as deeper explanations of why we failed so badly in the COVID-19 response. Her ethnographic insights are simply illuminating, and essential reading." - Lawrence Gostin, author of Global Health Security and Global Health Law
“The COVID-19 pandemic managed to defeat one of the richest countries in the world, exposing the fault lines of a splintered society. To recover and rebuild, we need to understand why. Emily Mendenhall’s new book does a masterful job of documenting the breakdown of America’s response and the invaluable lessons we can learn, to avert future crises.” —Madhukar Pai, Professor of Epidemiology & Global Health, McGill University
“Vital to encouraging others to look more deeply into their assumptions about what motivates people under the stress of a pandemic. . . . Interesting, engaging, and important.” —Prabhjot Singh, author of Dying and Living in the Neighborhood: A Street Level View of America’s Healthcare Promise
“Emily Mendenhall is one of the most brilliant anthropologists who manages to tackle real-world public health problems… This is a must-read for understanding COVID-19 in America." —Devi Sridhar, Professor, University of Edinburgh
Signing books with Dr Alex Jahangir, who wrote “Hot Spots”—one doctor’s journey through the first year of the pandemic, after our panel at Southern Festival of Books.
