With breathtaking erudition, poet and doctor Selina Mahmood explores theories of the mind, the struggles of starting a residency in neurology, Pakistani-American history, family, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. The collection was revised and completed in the spring of 2020, as Mahmood quarantined into a hotel to continue her residency and prevent her family from becoming ill. Ranging with confident aplomb across a swath of history, philosophy, literature, and medicine, the essays address the daily details of patient care during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. For lovers of Oliver Sacks, Susan Sontag, and Claudia Rankine, The Case of the Missing Feather is an elegant, incisive investigation into our universal search for meaning.