Annie Walton Doyle

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

Marooned in Manhattan with a stoned student and precocious parrot for company, our elderly narrator despairs of the novel’s future when life is so much stranger than fiction

Sigrid Nunez in New York in 2018. [Getty Images] 
issue 20 January 2024

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.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY A MONTH FREE
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Try a month of Britain’s best writing, absolutely free.

Comments

Join the debate, free for a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.

Already a subscriber? Log in