Nathan Hill’s sophomore novel Wellness is an engrossing insight into the modern psyche and the institution of marriage.
The novel is set in Chicago, from the 90s to the modern day, centered around a romance between bourgeois, directionless-but-ambitious Elizabeth, and Jack, a quiet artist from rural Kansas. Although their romance is initially dreamy and intense, it eventually becomes the “not quite happy but not miserable” relationship between two people who have been together for over fifteen years and have begun to grow discontented with each other.
Hill thus examines the nature of marriage itself; he unveils the arbitrary origin of modern marriage as an institution created to retain power within certain circles and proposes that it may be maladaptive in its impossibility. Yet despite this cynical prospect, Hill’s narrative is not hopeless.
Through the lens of their present marital issues, Hill takes the reader through both characters’ pasts to suggest that perhaps marriage is salvageable yet. He skillfully depicts how marriage is entwined with past relationships and present beliefs, revealing relationships to be a complex web; the strings of our parents, children, and others vibrate and affect the entire web. Elizabeth and Jack’s fraught marriage might not be a flaw of marriage itself, but instead, the consequence of other fraught relationships in their past.
In Wellness, Hill takes on the institution of marriage, as well as other conditioned beliefs and social constructs, in a clear-eyed but compassionate manner. Elizabeth’s old boss, an eccentric psychologist, sums up the novel’s ethos; “believe what you believe, my dear, but believe gently.” With this disarming humility, Wellness is both a satisfying journey through many characters’ pasts interwoven with their present and a poignant meditation on the beliefs we hold about ourselves and our institutions.
“Marriage” by jcoterhals is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0