#766 Nirvana- Adam Johnson
Wow, after 765 stories, it has become more and more difficult to find truly unique plots. This one was surprising. This is the first story in the National Book Award winning collection Fortune Smiles. Having recently read his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Orphan Master’s Son, I was excited to get into this book.
Charlotte suffers from Guillaine-Barre syndrome, a degenerative nerve disease that causes paralysis, sometimes temporary and sometimes progressive. It is getting to the point of no return for her.
“This is the ninth month, a month that is at the edge of the medical literature. It’s a place where the doctors no longer feel qualified to tell us whether Charlotte’s nerves will begin regenerating or she will be stuck like this forever.”
Her husband is a programmer and sits with her night and day while she struggles with her condition. She makes him promise to help her commit suicide if things get too bad. His thoughts of death are focused on the recently assassinated president. To help him deal with his wife and the suffering a nation goes through after an assassination he has created an interactive hologram of the president that he uses to seek answers.
This hologram has made him a target of every tech companies attentions. The need to protect and capitalize are on everyone’s minds. The need to prolong life is on his. The theme of artificial comfort is everywhere. Be it the joints his wife consumes, the fake conversations he has with the “president” or the security of commercial patents, we all want a little reassurance for the future.
Nirvana is the only music his wife listens to, perhaps to find the courage to kill heself or find a reason not too.
Notable Passage: “Can you tell a story that doesn’t begin?”
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