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Great Books

 "The Vulnerables" is an extraordinary novel about a woman at war with herself.


The woman--Sigrid Nunez--is living alone through COVID in New York City. There are reasons for despair. Nunez recalls a quote from Stephen Hawking in 2017: "Humanity has 100 years left on this planet." 

Nunez takes long walks through the semi-abandoned city, and one day, a stranger in a balaclava parks his bike in front of her. He pulls up the mask and coughs in her face; he rides away. On another day, Nunez visits a coffee shop she loves and chats with the barista who ranks at the top of her "favorites" list. She absentmindedly rests her hand on the counter, and the barista--enraged by the life of an "essential worker"--snaps at her. This takes her breath away.

On still another occasion, she opens hate mail from a stranger who has read her first book, "A Feather on the Breath of God." The stranger has concluded (1) the novel is not a novel but a memoir, (2) the central characters are Sigrid's parents, (3) it's wrong to write about one's parents, (4) it's within a reader's rights to assail a novelist via postal mail.

By a strange and plausible stroke of luck, Sigrid is thrown into a cohabitation situation with an erratic young man, "Vetch." This guy is a mess. He cannot live at home because his deficient mother can't tolerate him. (He has loudly accused her of being a bad writer.) The young man feels disgust toward the world: toward consumerism, toward meat-based diets, toward the practice of pet-ownership, toward tourism. (Being young, he has all the answers.) Also, Vetch can't imagine contributing to the world through labor, because no labor is "pure." Anything you do will involve compromise; even if you're involved in left-leaning politics, it's likely you're going to spend time courting donors who amassed their millions via the sale of opioids. The mind reels.

The tension builds between Vetch and Sigrid. One day, Sigrid irrationally digs into Vetch's vegan oat-based caramel frozen dessert product. Additionally, Sigrid complains about Vetch's mistreatment of a parrot. (It makes sense in the book.) Finally, the two semi-strangers fight about a vision of the future. If Sigrid can see Vetch getting married and having a family, why can't Vetch imagine these events for himself?

What happens next between the two is surprising and inevitable. It feels "real."

I seem not to get tired of Sigrid Nunez. Somewhere, I read that "The Vulnerables" is the completion of a loose trilogy, but I sort of hope this isn't true. I could continue to read the kind of work Nunez has been doing over the past ten years; I feel like she isn't finished with the voice that first announced itself in "The Friend." We'll see.
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