Elizabeth and Jack, between the suburbs of Chicago and the self-deception of love

Digressive and sometimes overabundant, Wellness (Rizzoli, pp. Consequently, 732. In addition, Euro 22, translation by Alberto Cristofori) – the new novel by Nathan Hill – who had made his debut in 2016 with the amazing The Nix – presents many of the typical characteristics of the great American social novel of the last twenty years. Furthermore, Compared to the Franzen de Correctionsremember too Swing Time Of the British Zadie Smith: here too we know the protagonists from youth at middle age. Moreover, or since 1993, the year in which Elizabeth and Jack know each other in a still not gentrified Chicago, to 2014, when most of the action takes place. For example, The two live in adjacent buildings. Consequently, at night they observe each other through the dark windows, imagining each other in the lives of the other.

When they start Finally to converse. elizabeth jack, between suburbs chicago Consequently, during a concert in a place, it seems to see one of those indie romantic comedies of the first two thousand. Elizabeth. Jack speak and speak, without interruption: “It is a completely crazy and ending conversation, a conversation that resembles a fall from the stairs, barely maintaining the balance, dragged by gravity, slipping, clinging and then in some way landing, as if by magic standing, intact and triumphant”. Love. as we know, does not last forever and we are certainly not caught by surprise when the couple, years later, shows the first signs of crisis. However. Hill’s second novel is an ambitious book and is much more than an “epic story of a wedding”, as stated the subtitle of the original edition, eliminated in the Italian version. Nathan Hill is phenomenal in dragging those who read a myriad of deviations. interconnections, unexpected conjunctures between past and present, but also elizabeth jack, between suburbs chicago among the truths and lies of contemporary society. Wellness above all tells the generation born. like the author, in the seventies, that generation X who after the commitment and the no -global riots, after the at least ideal refusal of capitalist society, finds himself dealing with Tik Tok and elderly and conspiracy parents.

One of the many plots Mirably intertwined – it is precisely that of the “well -being” of the title. The search for health is treated by Hill as a “post-truth” of our years. Wellness is the name of the health consultancy company that Elizabeth who founded in the suburbs of Chicago. After the doctorate. he worked at the Institute for Studies on the Placebo of the University, helping his professor to unmask fashion treatments through rigorous academic studies. Inevitably, when tested, products such as Slimskirt, the Cleanse Master or Smartshake were nothing more than harmless placebo.
When the elizabeth jack, between suburbs chicago professor retires. Elizabeth reconverted the wellness in a laboratory that offers treatment via placebo, without naturally communicating it to the patient. The narrative that hides behind these self-deceptions thus shows its inconsistency. while the author seems to want to say that basically every love story resembles a false care. Starting from his novel.