Susie Mesure

A study in vulnerability: The Coming Bad Days, by Sarah Bernstein, reviewed

An unnamed narrator leaves her partner for an academic career, but her new-found independence brings little comfort

Sarah Bernstein. Credit: Robin Irvine 
issue 24 April 2021

When the unnamed narrator of Sarah Bernstein’s The Coming Bad Days leaves the man with whom she has been living because she can’t bear the sight of the tidy line of his shirt collars hanging in the wardrobe, she triggers an existential crisis that dominates this debut novel: ‘The notion that I was free in theory but also in practice to do whatever I liked with my life was terrifying: it was nothing short of a nightmare.’

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