原文开头
As you cross the Androscoggin River into Lewiston, you pass on your left the waterfalls that once set the mills to humming. On your right, affixed to a pockmarked brick mill— now defunct, it had spun tens of thousands of bedspreads a week— a 30-foot-wide neon sign reads Hopefuf. And so I was. My wife and I drove by that unlit sign on the hot May afternoon when we moved from New York to the interior of Maine. It was 2020. The 100,000th American was about to die of COVID. And I was starting my dream job. …
摘自《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)2026-09 · 2026年9月9日。仅引用开头一小段供了解文章,版权归原刊所有,全文请阅读原刊。