Wellness

apartment in thick socks, occasionally doing an impromptu twirl, the skirt of her dress billowing briefly around her. In this drab and filthy place, she prefers dresses ­bright flowered sundresses incongruous amid the grit of this neighborhood, the cold of this winter. She tucks her legs under them as she sits in her plush velvet armchair, a few candles glowing nearby, her face impassive and cool, holding a book in one hand, the other hand idly tracing the lip of a wineglass. He watches her touch that glass and wonders how a little fingertip can inspire such a large torment.

Her apartment is decorated with postcards from places he assumes she s been ­Paris, Venice, Barcelona, Rome ­and framed posters of art he assumes she s seen in person: the statue of David, the Pietà, The Last Supper, Guernica. Her tastes are manifold and intimidating; meanwhile, he s never even seen an ocean.

She reads inordinately, at all hours, flicking on her yellow bedside lamp at two o clock in the morning to page through large and unwieldy textbooks ­biology, neurology, psychology, ­microeconomics ­or various stage plays, or collections of poetry, or thick histories of wars and empires, or scientific journals with inscrutable names and bland gray bindings. She listens to music he assumes is classical for the way her head sways to it. He strains to identify book jackets and album covers, then rushes to the public library the next day to read all the authors that rouse and unsleep her, and listen to all the symphonies she seems to have on repeat: the Haffner, the Eroica, the New World, the Unfinished, the Fantastique. He imagines that if they ever actually speak, he will drop some morsel of Symphonie Fantastique knowledge and she will be impressed with

A hilarious and moving exploration of a modern marriage that astounds in its breadth and intimacy. Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half

Wellness is such a beautiful, sometimes sad, sometimes satirical but most of all honest book about the many people a person becomes the way a life, in time, inevitably upends itself. A love story of dislodged chronology, Nathan Hill s brilliant interrogation of a single relationship spiderwebs out into almost every facet of our contemporary anxieties. Few writers working today have dissected, with such a sharp scalpel, the fundamental paradox of modern American life: this hopelessly broken need to fix what may not need fixing, to reach with utter desperation for a version of better that may not be better at all. Read Wellness with caution: it lays so much of our little self-deceptions bare. Omar El Akkad, author of American War

Nathan Hill has synthesized about a hundred years of that distinctly American delusion called self-improvement, and Wellness is the whip smart and gently comic result. Epic in scope, domestic in scale, it s a book that defies anyone to read it and willingly pick up a dumbbell or worry about counting steps ever again. Hill has released you, America, and his book will leave you not only fortified but amazed. Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End

Wellness is one of the funniest, saddest, smartest novels I ve ever read. In his portrait of one foundering marriage, Nathan Hill has encapsulated the pathologies and possibilities of our troubled era. With his razor-sharp satire and heartbreaking pathos, his stylistic virtuosity and human warmth, Hill has written both a propulsive page-turner and an artistic achievement of the highest order. I didn t think I could love a book more than The Nix until I read Wellness. It's a flat-out masterpiece." Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Ambitious, deeply engrossing, whip-smart and ultimately heartbreaking, Nathan Hill s Wellness is all this and much more. Richard Russo, author of the North Bath Trilogy

Astutely observed, hilariously satirical . . . Hill s prose is radiant and ravishing throughout this saturated, intricately honeycombed novel of delving cogitation as he evokes the wonders of the prairie and the city, and the ever-perplexing folly, anguish, and beauty of the human condition. Booklist (starred review)

Hill blends a family chronicle with cultural critique in his expansive and surprisingly tender latest . . . This stunning novel of ideas never loses sight of its humanity. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Warmhearted . . . A bittersweet novel of love gained, lost, and regained over the course of decades. Kirkus Reviews