Post-apocalypse novels fly off the shelves as readers seek solace amid coronavirus fears, from The Stand by Stephen King to The Plague by Albert Camus

Readers flocking to dark fiction are looking for hope amid uncertainty, says communications professor, explaining spike in requests to libraries

Fiction relating to a trauma people are experiencing resonates strongly with readers because characters are experiencing what they are, another academic says

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A still from the film adaptation of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Post-apocalyptic novels are in high demand during the coronavirus pandemic.

Published: 4:30pm, 5 Apr 2020Updated: 5:00pm, 5 Apr 2020

Rachel Colby’s choice for a recent Sunday night movie at her home in the US state of Ohio was hardly the sort of escapism that many people seek in times of crisis. Instead, it was the all-too-real 2011 Matt Damon movie Contagion.

But rather than add to any distress she may have been feeling due to the current coronavirus crisis, the film about a deadly infection spreading across the globe allayed some of Colby’s fears.

“Some of our friends were like, ‘That might make your anxiety worse’, but when we watched it, it actually made us feel better,” said 25-year-old Colby. “It showed the worst-case scenario, and it was a wake-up call that that’s life – it’s scary but I’d rather be educated on how to handle these situations.”

Experts say there may be an underlying logic behind why some people choose to seek out tales that hit close to home during a state of emergency.

The cover of existential classic The Plague by Albert Camus.

Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, a professor in the school of communication at Ohio State University, said that fictional movies and books – with their clearly defined beginning, middle and end – tended to provide a sense of relief when compared with the uncertainty found in news reports.