Everyone is Unwell đź‘“ Private Citizens by Tony Tulathimutte
Hello! This is my inaugural newsletter experiment—a place for me to chew on the books I’ve been reading. If you’re receiving this particular issue, it’s because I talked about this idea around you and you thought it sounded like something you’d like to read. Hope you enjoy.
Gentle Readers,
Two months ago I read Private Citizens, by Tony Tulathimutte. I only read this book because it was a selection for a book club; it is not the sort of thing I would've picked up on my own. If I were to assign a genre to this book, I would call it realistic fiction, under the subgenre of the bildungsroman, the coming-of-age novel. It feels slightly too self-consciously ironic to be called literary fiction.
The novel follows four characters in their early twenties, drifting in and out of each others lives as they navigate a rapidly-changing SF. There's Cory, a workaholic idealist and unwitting nonprofit heiress; Henrik, a graduate student running out of time, money, and will to live; Linda, the greatest writer of her generation (who just happens to not have written anything yet); and Will, an unsatisfied tech worker whom Tulathimutte described as ["me minus writing plus girlfriend."]* The four college friends drift into and out of each others lives, arguing about politics, grappling with their newfound adulthood, and struggling to connect with the people around them. New York Magazine called it "The first great millennial novel," and it is, indeed, deeply Millennial.
On the whole, everyone in Private Citizens is dubiously employed, living in weird cohabitations, having a lot of sex, and doing a lot of drugs. They are miserable. I found this a little weird, because I happen to know a good number of people who are dubiously employed, living in weird cohabitations, having a lot of sex, and doing a lot of drugs, and they on the whole seems fairly happy with their lives. To reconcile this, I consulted with eyewitnesses in the form of Ari, who was a graduate student at Berkley around the same time the novel takes place. Ari said I must remember that at the time of the novel, the economy was very bad and there were no jobs. Simultaneously, the modern tech boom was just starting. The characters definitely feel this squeeze, some sprinting towards the future and some lurching lurching reluctantly (some both). The dramatic irony of knowing, as the reader, that the economy will be in total shambles in a matter of months, is a bit stressful.
Everyone in this book is also extremely sick. I don't mean this in a metaphorical way; I mean it very literally. Private Citizens is a parade of accidents, infections, addictions, complications, medications, malnourishments, and illnesses both mental and physical. No one makes it through this book without a diagnosis or three. It feels notable that this book is in a pre-Obamacare America (and that even a post-Obamacare America still runs on a private insurance market, which here befits our private citizens). There is a social life but no social safety net, self-absorption without any self-care. If the crunch culture of the dawning tech boom leaves no time for prevention, that doesn't matter because it can cover the cost of any cure. This novel is probably the strongest argument for the Affordable Care Act in contemporary fiction.
I personally didn't find the characters very relatable or realistic, but many of my fellow book club attendees found bits of themselves or others in novel. Perhaps this is a byproduct of the fact that I spent my early twenties living with my parents, and this is a distinctly parent-free book. Or perhaps I need to become more ill to really connect with the text on a personal level. I was pleased that the ending was a satisfying without being a perfect resolution, and annoyed that it took so long to get there. Around page 150 I found myself muttering "okay Tony, time to wrap it up" under my breath, and I guess he was getting pretty bored himself because there was one insane curveball that I won't spoil. It's hard to say whether the four main characters are better off at the end, but at least some of them seem to have learned something.
Would I recommend this book? I don't know; I think barring extreme circumstances that's generally outside the scope of this newsletter. Hopefully I've given you enough information that you can decide for yourself whether it's worth picking up. In the meantime, my current book pile includes a history of Glossier, murderous owls, and a four-hundred page treatise on soccer tactics.
Anyway, what are you reading?
— Grace
*I was initially eye-roll-y about this and included it to be snarky. But, the context of the actual interview the quote is from, the "formula" is a framing for Tulathimutte to push back against internalized expectations placed on Asian-American writers. So I retract some of my snark.