Musings in lockdown: The Vulnerables, by Sigrid Nunez, reviewed

The Vulnerables represents Sigrid Nunez’s foray into pandemic literature, a genre we can only expect to see grow in the coming years. The topic is handled with a level of absurdity, making elements of the story eerily (and sometimes traumatically) recognisable. Nunez’s musings on how writing can represent the strangeness of life are never more poignant than when she reflects on the ‘uncertain spring’ of 2020. You’d think she was inventing it if you hadn’t been there yourself.

The question of how to write when life is stranger than fiction is at the centre of the book. ‘More and more, fictional story-telling is coming across as beside the point,’ she declares. ‘More and more writers are having difficulty quieting a voice that says, Why are you making things up?’

These ruminations on how to write the unthinkable are often profound:

The traditional novel has lost its place as the major genre of our time.