Wellness is a 2023 novel by American author Nathan Hill. His second novel, following his debut The Nix, it was published by Alfred A. Knopf on September 19, 2023. The book was selected as Oprah's 102nd Book Club pick and became a New York Times bestseller.
Plot The novel follows Jack Baker and Elizabeth Augustine, who meet as college students in Chicago during the 1990s and fall in love. Both aspiring artists, they navigate the city's underground art scene and marry. The narrative then jumps forward roughly twenty years, depicting the couple in middle age, now living in the Chicago suburbs with a young son.
As their marriage frays under the pressures of parenting, unfulfilled ambitions, and the relentless pursuit of self-optimization detox diets, home renovations, fitness trackers, and wellness fads Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize the people they have become. The novel explores their separate attempts to find meaning: Jack falls in with a group of wellness enthusiasts whose practices blur into cult-like behavior, while Elizabeth becomes entangled in a polyamorous flirtation and grapples with painful memories of her dysfunctional childhood. The story moves between past and present, tracing how the couple's early idealism gave way to the disillusionments of middle age.
Themes and style Wellness is a state-of-the-nation satire that examines contemporary American life through the lens of a single marriage. The novel addresses themes including the nature of truth and the stories people tell about their own lives; the rise of health and wellness culture; the impact of technology, social media algorithms, and data on human relationships; and the challenges of sustaining intimacy over time.
Critics have noted the novel's capacious, digressive structure. At 624 pages, it has been described as a "behemoth of a novel" that "swarms with characters, ideas, and sociological evocations". The narrative incorporates detours into subjects ranging from the art market and real estate to interior design, parenting, and the history of placebos. Hill employs a satirical tone throughout, though reviewers have also emphasized the novel's emotional depth and underlying compassion for its characters.
Several reviewers have drawn comparisons to the maximalist fiction of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. The Atlantic observed that Hill is "less gnomic than the former and more humane than the latter," and that Wellness makes "a better case than I've come across in a long time for the uniquely transporting experience of reading a long, digressive novel bursting with ideas".
Reception In The New York Times, the novel was described as "a unique blend of satire and realism". The Washington Post called it "gorgeous" and noted that "few recent novels harbor as much love for humanity as this one does," praising Hill's ability to render every character sympathetic despite their flaws. The Guardian hailed the novel as "American storytelling at its era-spanning best" and "a work of quiet genius".
Background Hill began writing the material that would become Wellness in his mid-20s, initially as a short story about two people watching each other from windows across an alley. He rediscovered the idea while on a summer vacation with friends in 2014, when he observed his social circle becoming preoccupied with health fads, life hacks, and wellness trends spiralizing zucchini, intermittent fasting, and tracking macronutrients. Hill has said he was struck by how otherwise reasonable people began adopting what he saw as irrational beliefs and practices, a phenomenon he traces to the rise of algorithmic social media and the commodification of self-improvement.
Hill has described the novel as being about "the stories we believe in and how our worlds are shaped by those stories". In interviews, he has discussed the tension between intuition and information, and how relationships can be distorted by the narratives people impose upon them.
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