In a novella of rich emotion, the narrator, from their sick bed, reflects on four relationships from their past. Set in a mostly pre social-media world, it brilliantly evokes the texture of intense connections that shape us, while questioning how much we can ever truly know others. Although there is loss here, it left me with a life-affirming celebration of the mystery and wonder of shared experience that extends far beyond the page.
We live so many lives within our lives - smaller lives with people who come and go, friends who disappear, children who grow up - and I never know which of these lives is meant to serve as the frame. But whenever I'm in the grips of a fever or infatuation there is no confusion: my 'self' recedes and gives space to a nameless joy, a unified whole that preserves all the details, inseparable and distinct, next to one another. Afterwards I always remember this state as one of grace.
