Lauren Beukes, a script and fiction writer, is drawn to narratives that allow her to probe themes of gender and power. For her upcoming novel, “Afterland,” she imagined a plot twist _____21____ a disease wipes out virtually the entire male population. “I wanted to explore what a world without men would look like and how it wouldn’t necessarily be a better place with everyone making friendship bracelets and growing communal gardens and walking at night,” says Beukes, who began her book years before the current coronavirus pandemic. Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, says his new novel was inspired by a question the filmmaker Ridley Scott asked him years ago after reading Cormac McCarthy’s dystopian, “The Road ”: How could social order break down so completely when we’re ____22____ by a sudden disaster? His upcoming thriller, “The End of October,” describes, uncannily, a global pandemic originating in Asia. He had meant his new book as a cautionary tale. Plagues have been with us for at least ____23_____ people have been able to record them. But among those who create art, their meaning has changed profoundly according to the time and the teller. Chris Bohjalian’s new novel, “The Red Lotus,” has just been published. The author looks for stories about “heartbreak and dread” and thought of a pandemic — an idea he developed after reading an article about mice carrying viruses resistant to treatment. In his book, rats are the carriers of diseases, ____24____ people are the real villains. “I don’t view the possible pandemic in the novel as a metaphor,” he says. “But a pathogen doesn’t attack a human with conscious malice. But humans? We are all too conscious of the carnage we can ____25___ one another.” 21. 22. 23. 24.