Wellness – Nathan Hill
Expectation: A decades-spanning exploration of lust, love and monogamous monotony.
Reality: Smart, funny and heartfelt, Hill brings his characters to life in vivid detail while translating macro ideas about society into intimate, meaningful moments.
My Take:
“Wellness” will undoubtedly be deemed the next Great American Novel™ because of its length and exploration of timely topics through a Middle America lens, but whereas some might view that as a compliment, I think it pigeonholes the story — and possibly alienates potential readers.
Sure, Nathan Hill explores the intersection of technology, politics and money on the conscious and subconscious self, but he went for intimacy over scale, using those elements as a framework to dissect what is, in essence, a love story.
It starts in the early 1990s, when modern bohemians (think “Rent”) Jack and Elizabeth have fled to pre-gentrification Wicker Park, Chicago, to escape repressive childhoods. They quickly become each other’s entire world and vow to maintain their anti-establishment ideals.
Twenty years later they would be nearly unrecognizable to their younger selves, having embraced the trappings of capitalism and allowing a chasm to grow between them — the product of unresolved trauma that manifests as a desire to please others over self.
These are the broadest strokes of the story, and the homebase that Hill frequently revisits. Yet between the 600+-pages is a cornucopia of interesting anecdotes and social commentaries that melded into the most interesting and entertaining book I’ve read this year.
Readers of Hill’s debut “The Nix,” know that his storytelling doesn’t follow a straight line. There’s a plot, sure, but how the novel ends is far less interesting than the journey he takes us on. And, this journey will take you everywhere from the Flint Hills of Kansas to the forests of Western Connecticut and a swingers’ club in Chicago.
Jack and Elizabeth are given near equal page-time and through flashbacks and reflection, we learn the depth of their challenges and how desperately they want to resolve them. The story is so immersive that I felt like a voyeur spying on the most personal moments of two strangers.
Whereas the scope of “The Nix” was extensive, balancing decades worth of dual POVs and introducing many characters — both real and fictional — as they experience watershed world events, “Wellness’ is far more contained but no less epic.
In many ways, I think Hill did a better job of not letting ideas or situations overshadow the characters — a minor issue with “The Nix” — but strong character arcs is only one aspect of what made this novel so engrossing.
In the author’s note, Hill said that writing a book gives him “permission” to explore the various “odd things” that grab his attention. In this case that’s the psychology of placebo, social media algorithms, fine art and, of course, long-term relationships.
Each of these topics play an important role in the plot, and I was frequently struck by the depths of Hill’s knowledge, further evidenced by the nearly 20-page bibliography that shows he did extensive research on each topic, too.
We’ve all read novels where it’s clear the author is trying to impress the reader, but Hill is the ultimate Midwesterner, effortlessly showing off while never coming across as pretentious. Thanks, in large part, to the humanistic and humorous approach he takes to each situation.
He knows these whims need to pay off, and with maybe one or two exceptions, he found a way to organically connect them in a meaningful way to Jack or Elizabeth. For instance, readers already know that social media algorithms manipulate data to optimize engagement so rather than give us a primer on the topic (which he does), it’s through the lens of how this manipulation further erodes the relationship between Jack and his father.
My one complaint is that he didn’t quite nail the ending. The last few chapters were a little scattershot and rushed, and honestly, I would’ve preferred about 60-pages trimmed from the middle to tighten the end.
Still, I had unreasonably high hopes for “Wellness” and, thankfully, they were often met and frequently exceeded. I’m not one to re-read novels, but knowing that Ari Fliakos — who provided one of the best audiobook narrations of all-time in “The Nix” — is going to tackle this one, I just might be tempted. If that isn’t a resounding endorsement for this novel, I don’t know what is.
Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an advanced reader copy. This exchange of goods did not influence my review.
Rating (story): 5/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Format: eBook (ARC)
Dates read: June 10 – June 28, 2023
Multi-tasking: N/A
