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Common sense tells us that who survives an epidemic ravaging the US population depends on science—epidemiology, individual biology—and access to medical care. It’s that latter factor that’s more complicated than most of us realize. In his new book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide, acclaimed LGBTQ scholar and journalist Steven W. Thrasher traces the paths of HIV, COVID, and other viral scourges. He exposes how inequality—in both economic and social standing—literally determines who suffers, who gets care, and who gets to live. Naomi Klein calls the new work “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.”

Join us for this illuminating conversation: Dr. Thrasher with Kepler’s journalist-in-residence Angie Coiro, for our This Is Now series.

Photo of Steven W. Thrasher by C. S. Muncy