There's Nothing Wrong with Her

A brand new book by Kate Weinberg, author of The Truants

Welcome back to Words on Words, where readers discuss what we love about literature.

Today is August 15 — a date I have been thinking about for months. It is the deadline for me to send my second novel to my agent — and I am happy to report I just sent it off!

But back to our regular programming: books! (Published ones.) Today we’re talking about There’s Nothing Wrong With Her by Kate Weinberg¹.

Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle | Vincent van Gogh

The book is about a woman named Vita who passes most of her time in The Pit: the nickname for her bed where she struggles through an invisible, unnamed illness that nobody — not even her very successful doctor boyfriend — can figure out. Too tired to do anything besides lie in bed in The Pit, Vita is kept company by two unlikely friends: her goldfish, Whitney Houston, and a 500-year-old ghost, Luigi Da Porto, whom Vita had studied while chasing a boyfriend to Italy and who wrote the novella upon which Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was based.

If it sounds weird, it is. But it’s also not that weird. Her relationship with Luigi is charming and funny and he helps her realize a lot about herself. Eventually she has to make a trip to deliver something to the apartment above, and there she makes another unlikely friend.

What first interested me about this book was how the author could possibly carry out an entire novel with a protagonist who barely left her room. Barely left her head, for that matter. Despite the incredibly small setting (and the pretty short book) a lot actually happens on the page. Through flashbacks we learn Vita is navigating some pretty hefty grief on top of the agony she experiences physically and mentally with her illness.

Vita says to her boyfriend at one point that she’s been telling herself a lie: that there’s nothing wrong with her. She says:

Aside from all the shit that’s going on with my body, I mean. Because that’s what we do. That’s how we’ve learned not to frighten men off. But the truth is, it just makes us angry. And more than a little mad. Because we’re squashing down the bits of us we know you can’t handle. Whether that’s in the attic or the basement or the fucking bedroom. And somewhere along the line that means we start to forget who we are too.

That is so powerful, I wanted to underline it twice. Does this not resonate with women? That we keep inside what we know others can’t handle, and in doing so we begin to forget who we are?

If I’m being honest, I think the cover is a misrepresentation of the seriousness of this novel. With the font that evokes Jennifer Weiner and the rom-com style illustration, the book appears light-hearted. But as you can see from the spectacularly profound statement above, it’s not. It’s actually about a debilitating invisible illness, about people not believing her, and about death and grief.

In the acknowledgements, author Kate Weinberg mentions the book is based on a real illness she had. I doubt Luigi Da Porto showed up for her, but you never know! While serious, the book has many moments of levity — mainly concerning, in Vita’s words: “a jilted Renaissance ghost who wrote Romeo and Juliet.”

I’ve never read something quite like this, and I won’t soon forget it.

By the way, I’ve come across some excellent online reading this week and I thought you might enjoy these as well:

Literary fiction book recommendations for beginners by

Madeline Mills

What to read this fall by

Beth Morris

Why dysfunctional families are the best families by

Morgan Dick

What I’m reading: First Love: Essays on Friendship by Lilly Dancyger

What are you reading? Have you started curating your fall reading list yet? I haven’t, but I’m beginning to think about it!

Love,

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1. A million thanks to Putnam for the free copy of this book!