Life, what one might call the body plot, defies the traditional rules of storytelling. There’s no art or logic to it: Sickness blindsides us; the end is often sudden. Though we may refer to everyday misfortunes as tragedies or acts of God, “stuff happens” is hardly Aristotle. Nor are our bodies vessels for morality tales; suffering is defiantly meaningless. Death, in the words of James Baldwin, “is the only fact we have.” Most of us would agree that this is a bleak, unsatisfying truth.
The narrative inadequacy of illness hovers over Garth Greenwell’s profound third novel. “Small Rain” follows an unnamed narrator through a terrifying bodily event and his subsequent experiences in the intensive care unit of an Iowa City hospital in the summer of 2020. Though the narrator shares much of his author’s biography, including a medical episode resembling the one in the book, Greenwell recently told New York Magazine that it’s “in no way a transcription of my own experience.” What credence readers may give this statement is beside the point; Greenwell’s “vague and shapeless” time in the hospital, an experience that “offered none of the satisfactions of narrative,” is transfigured in “Small Rain” into a paean to some of life’s most meaningful pleasures.
For the review in full, visit The Washington Post.
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