Structure

Michael Lewis organizes The Premonition into an introduction, “The Missing Americans,” three parts, and an epilogue, “The Sin of Omission.” Part 1 contains the following chapters: Prologue, “The Looking Glass,” Chapter 1, “The Making of a Public-Health Officer,” Chapter 3, “The Pandemic Thinker,” Chapter 4, “Stopping the Unstoppable,” and Chapter 5, “Clairvoyance.” Part 2 contains Chapter 6, “The Red Phone,” Chapter 7, “The Redneck Epidemiologist,” Chapter 8, “In Mann Gulch,” and Chapter 9, “The L6.” Part 3 contains the final chapters: Chapter 10, “The Bug in the System,” Chapter 11, “Plastic Flowers,” and Epilogue, “The Sin of Omission.” Because Lewis largely omits his personal narrative voice and opinion from the page, the above chapter divisions and titles act as navigational tools for the reader throughout the text.

Lewis devotes the introduction, “The Missing Americans,” to introducing his reasons for and inspirations behind writing The Premonition. He explains that he begins every project with a question, one which he is unsure...