plot-the literary structure that signals progress-gives way to an atmosphere of anxious uncertainty, one familiar to many of us who came of age during a moment of financial and ecological crisis. Strong, meanwhile, is great on the small details of the literature classroom. While it doesn’t fix the world or even pay the rent, in companionship there is grace. Viewed from that angle, the book proved more interesting, and it turns out some of the heroine’s fecklessness is related to long-ago psychological torment that brought both Elizabeth and Sasha to their knees. As I read on, engaged, sympathetic and often frustrated, I found myself in that strange space of feeling deeply for her predicament, yet wanting to shake sense into her: Keep your two lousy jobs and send your husband back to work! But what looks at first glance like a couple too entitled and spoiled to face the music ultimately lays bare what happens to people so vulnerable and idealistic that they are seemingly unable to climb out of the hole they’ve dug together.

Strong.) But her tale of woe is in many ways painfully familiar, and Want often reads like the plotless treadmill diary of a 30-something artist-class white Brooklynite who was born into what she unrealistically thought was a safer, more forgiving world. The books she inhales for sustenance have turned out to be a great addition to my own pandemic pile. As a narrator, Elizabeth is smart and funny and literary to the marrow. While it doesn’t fix the world or even pay the rent, in companionship there is grace.I empathized with Elizabeth, the confessional narrator of Want, Lynn Steger Strong’s moving second novel.

I empathized with Elizabeth, the confessional narrator of Want, Lynn Steger Strong’s moving second novel.

Lynn steger strong want