There Were Numerous Passages In This Book That Were Flashes of Brilliance

In his book Wellness, the Chicago of author Nathan Hill’s imagination is a far more richly layered one than meets the eye, full of possibilities, both good and otherwise. The book is like a coming of age (middle age) for main characters Jack and Elizabeth long after they arrive in Chicago for college. Their pilgrimage through life together forces them to examine the authenticity of their lives and trust their own instincts, rather than continuing to make life altering decisions based on prevailing external forces and social media dictates.   

This powerful book feels epic in scope. It begins on the sweeping prairie of Jack’s childhood, a backdrop of an endless sea of rippling tall grass, teeming with life, as vibrant to those who really look, as if it had a heartbeat of its own. Jack is taken by the images he sees around him every day of twisted and bent prairie trees, “growing up crooked, nudged that way by the prairie’s relentless bullying air.” It is a stark landscape, one that reverberates throughout the book, as much a reflection of the tenacity of living things in the face of adversity, as for Nature’s seeming cruelty.  

Both Jack and Elizabeth face challenges during childhood. Elizabeth grows up in a family of great wealth, but her mother has other commitments on her only child’s birthday. Her father acts like a narcissist competing with his daughter, punishing her when he feels she falls short, satiating his rage. Jack, a sickly, later in life baby, grows up being told by his mother he should never have been born, much less conceived. His older sister Evelyn is perfection in every way, and fills his parents hearts so full, he feels there’s no room for him. Harsh winds can blow hard through a family, affecting a child’s development, but the “bent tree” is usually concealed on the inside of them, not visible like twisted prairie trees, an internal response to a punishing home environment. Evelyn connects with her brother Jack emotionally and artistically, and their relationship is the wellspring for whatever psychological strength he harbors. 

Jack and Elizabeth’s paths cross when they rent apartments across from each other in the Wicker Park area of Chicago, free of their familial fetters, and ready to explore. They notice and are attracted by what they see of each other, secretly observing for some time from their respective windows, and finally connecting after months at a local hotspot. 

One of the book’s themes involves artists and experts who “did not see what was there. Instead, they saw what wasn’t…the prairie did not accord with the traditional standards of what was specifically beautiful in landscape art.” Jack’s sister Evelyn notes, “‘Those explorers were looking for the one thing that didn’t grow, and so they didn’t notice all the things that did grow. It’s an important lesson. If you cling too hard to what you want to see, you miss what’s really there.’” Time is given value when it’s used to openly and non-judgmentally observe, learn, internalize information, and see world widening possibilities, rather than allowing a particular and limited personal frame of reference to evaluate what is seen without understanding it. The openness of scope is the genesis of creative process, and an important aspect of the scientific method’s search for truth: think outside the box.   

Pressures in the book arise from others setting standards for artists, mothers, children, school programs, and the toll raising an emotionally challenged child takes on the parents’ relationship. Universities have leaders that are CFOs, programs are now evaluated based on degree of social media engagement, and those who fall short will be fired. Professionals at the Wellness clinic are prescribing placebos and remedies without honesty and transparency because their experts know best. So many are looking for easy cures and focusing on what’s “missing” based on unrealistic expectations. Relationships are fraying, life becomes more complex. As the author describes, “The actual world has become one big hypertext, and nobody knows how to read it. It’s a free-for-all where people build whatever story they want out of the world’s innumerable available scraps.” Authenticity becomes collateral damage.   

At one point Elizabeth seeks the counsel of an older collegue who tells her,“‘Believe what you believe, my dear, but believe gently. Believe compassionately. Believe with curiosity. Believe with humility. And don’t trust the arrogance of certainty.” Elizabeth thinks to herself, “…almost by definition, that certainty was a way to avoid living. You could choose to be certain, or you could choose to be alive. And the only thing she was certain of was this: that between ourselves and the world are a million stories, and if we don’t know which among them are true, we might as well try out those that are most humane, most generous, most beautiful, most loving.”  

There were numerous passages in this book that were flashes of brilliance, and as you encounter them, it’s like suddenly unearthing a nugget, the flash of iridescence on a peacock’s body, or finding a fairy stone among the leaves in a vast forest. If that is appealing, open the cover, walk the path, and discover the treasures awaiting you.