NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME FOR A BREAKDOWN

In West’s novel, a young woman finds herself spiraling in the months leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s July 2019 in New York City, but for this book’s 30-something narrator (whose name is never revealed), even the sunniest summer days in Lower Manhattan can’t keep her spirits up. She doesn’t know that a global pandemic is just months away, but her own personal shutdown has already begun. Her roommate, Emma, gets into a serious romantic relationship; her parents maintain steady jobs at Target’s headquarters, which they’ve held for decades; and her own marketing co-workers start to question her abilities and mental health. The narrator appears to be the only one in her orbit who doesn’t have it all together. She goes on a series of dates, engages in heavy drinking and random hookups, and flirts with everyone from her local coffee server, whom she calls “Barista Brian,” to a local bartender, Taylor, and finds herself in a situationship with a khakis-and-boat-shoes-wearing guy named Greg. He checks all the boxes of what she should want, except for the fact that he clearly doesn’t respect her—and she also can’t get Taylor out of her mind. Most of the chapters in West’s book begin with a date to place the story in time as the Covid-19 shutdown first looms on the horizon and later overshadows everyone’s lives. This timeline usefully provides readers with a play-by-play of the narrator’s daily life, including her interactions with her coworkers and family—and it makes clear that, for the protagonist, good friends are in short supply. The novel’s most poignant moments, though, happen in the interstitial chapters, which offer train-of-thought ramblings, poems, and, finally, a letter to one of the narrator’s lovers: “I’m sorry I disappeared. I heard you were trying to find me. Thanks for that.”

A unique study of one woman’s inner life before, during, and after a major global event.