Nell Freudenberger’s Lucky Girls was a wonderful collection of short stories (see Reeta’s review), but it’s a big step from short stories to a full-length novel, and not every novelist can do it well. Freudenberger, however, is one of those who can, as evidenced by The Limits.
Much of the novel is set in New York City in 2020, and we all know what was happening at that time. People were dying of Covid, both the infirm and the healthy. In those early stages of the pandemic, scientific information was limited, and so was protective gear. Schools had moved to Zoom classes. No one knew exactly what was safe and what was not.
In this complicated environment, three of Freudenberger’s main characters have lives which have been upended. One is Stephen, is a cardiologist who now spends all his time treating Covid patients. His wife Kate is a schoolteacher who is pregnant, and therefore teaches all her classes via zoom instead of the hybrid option.
Halfway across the world in Tahiti live Stephen’s ex-wife Nathalie and their 15-year-old daughter Pia. Tahiti is relatively safe from Covid, but remote learning is not working that well for Pia, so it has been agreed that she will spend the year in New York City with her father and Kate, at a French immersion school.
Given Pia’s age, it is almost inevitable that sparks will fly between her and Kate, the new stepmother who is mostly responsible for her. (Stephen is working relentlessly and is hardly ever around). She longs to be back in Mo’orea, where she has more freedom and a crush on Raffi, a Tahitian twice her age.
One of Kate’s students is Athyna, who is black and lives a very different life in Brooklyn from the wealthy Manhattanites Stephen, Kate and Pia. Athyna lives with her mother, her sister Breanna, Breanna’s boyfriend Elijah and their son Marcus. Money is tight, but Athyna’s mother and sister both work good jobs as phlebotomists, a career much in demand at this time. Elijah is a wastrel, so it falls to Athyna to look after Marcus and manage her schoolwork at the same time.
Freudenberger’s sentences are beautifully complex and nuanced, and often gently funny, and I found myself re-reading several sections with pleasure.
[Nathalie] said that she had come to the States for a fellowship at Woods Hole, and that her specialty was coral reproduction, especially under the stress of climate change. She told him that coral could reproduce sexually and asexually, and that most sexually reproducing coral were capable of producing both male and female gametes.
“This is called broadcast spawning. Many people think that it is triggered by the moon, but actually the lunar cues are only preparing them to spawn.”
He found it immediately touching that she believed in the existence of a large population of people deeply interested (but unfortunately misinformed) about coral reproduction.
There are two very different places in this book: Tahiti — warm, inviting, relaxed and friendly, but still affected by the years of nuclear testing; and New York City — vibrant, diverse and dynamic in normal times, but exponentially intense during the waves of Covid. Yet, life continues in both places — Pia finds teenage friends (who are not very friendly, but are all rich); Kate’s pregnancy progresses; Athyna is deeply affectionate towards her nephew Marcus despite resenting her responsibility.
There are also, inevitably, changes. Stephen’s emails to his ex-wife Nathalie drift from simple conversations about their daughter Pia into deeper thoughts and stories about his patients, things he does not share with Kate. Pia plots ways of returning to Tahiti. Athyna’s household responsibilities leave her little time, and she struggles to get her college essays done before the deadline. Kate has years of familiarity with teenage students, but struggles to understand her stepdaughter Pia.
Freudenberger is very good at picking out the subtleties that lie behind human behaviour.
[Kate] usually slept in a tank top and flimsy shorts, but this morning she was wearing an oversized Tshirt and a pair of his pyjama pants. It probably wasn’t because of the pregnancy, not yet very visible, but because she knew how a girl Pia’s age would feel about her new stepmother’s body. It wasn’t exactly fair to Kate, in her own home, and she was doing it anyway. He was filled with love.
The horrific infamy of the nuclear tests in Tahiti is powerfully described:
On Rongelap there was a big flash of light. People came outside to see what was happening. Snow was falling from the sky! It fell in piles on the ground and little kids played in it. They put it in their mouths. The US Army didn’t get anyone out for two days. The snow was warm and dry because it wasn’t snow — it was exploded bits of radioactive coral.
The colonialistic attitudes — blatant in the past, more subtly present now — of the French and Americans towards the Tahitians is examined:
[Nathalie] thought [the Tahitians] were right to be skeptical, especially of those scientists who dropped in and came out, publication in hand. When you found someone unconventional like Raffi, you admired him; you admired yourself admiring his more traditional values. But recently Nathalie had a creeping suspicion that what she was really admiring were her own values, circling like currents around the globe.
There are many threads in this novel, and perhaps just a few too many, so that the importance of some of them get lost. Each plotline is well done, but can a reader care equally about Kate’s irritability and Raffi’s environmental worries and Athyna’s college essay?
Still, Freudenberger writes very intelligent prose which never talks down to her readers. There must have been enormous amounts of research that went into describing Stephen’s days in the ICU as well as the Tahitian research facility, but it is all blended into the writing; it never seems like the author is showing off her own erudition. Her writing is always worth reading.
So happy you gave this the thumbs up. Reserved it straightaway!