This one hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I have a lot of thoughts—scattered, half-formed—but I’ll start here: I’m generally a fan of Lydia Millet. Even the novels of hers that don’t fully work for me feel singular. They’re not better or worse versions of books I’ve read before or ones still sitting in the pile. They feel like her—like something only she could’ve made.
This isn’t her best novel. It’s not in her top three. And yet, it spoke to me in a way that few books do—not because it dazzled me, but because it offered something you almost never see in fiction: a main character who’s just… okay.
You know how when you friend someone on Goodreads, it sometimes triggers one of those autofill questions? I got one recently that asked, “What fictional character do you relate to most?” I usually skip that kind of thing. I don’t really “relate” to characters. I am who I am. Most books aren’t written about people like me.
Check my profile. I basically do what I want. I travel, I go to the beach, I drink iced coffee, and I keep good company. I’m kind of boring. I’m not out for vengeance. I’m not a ninja. To my knowledge, I possess no ancient talisman, and I’m not the chosen one in some secret bloodline war. I’m not caught in a love triangle, because I live on the coast and beautiful people are everywhere, so there’s really no need to complicate things. I’m not a serial killer or the victim of one. I don’t go into creepy houses, and I don’t trek into the wilderness unless there’s a luxury resort hiding behind a grove of palm trees.
In this novel, Lydia Millet gives us a main character who’s also boring. He’s a middle-aged, rich white guy who inherited a fortune and moved from New York to Arizona. (In this, we differ—if I can’t see the ocean, I’m not interested.) For most of the book, because we’ve been trained by fiction to expect it, we wait for the twist. We wait for deviance, for dysfunction. We wait for the macabre to crawl in, for the critical flaw that will bring ruin, for something. But it never comes. He’s not hiding a body in the backyard. He’s not a fraud. He’s not secretly brilliant or quietly monstrous. He’s just… kind of okay. A decent guy. In today’s world, that feels like reading about a damn alien.
A dinosaur.
Now, to be clear—I’m not a white guy. I didn’t inherit much of anything. I’m younger. And, if I’m honest, I’m probably a bigger asshole than this guy. I’d like to think I’m a bit sharper, too. But I’m also someone who hasn’t had to work in years (I used to blog about books, which is its own financial indicator). I’m not burning money for fun, but I do okay. I try to give back—time, money, whatever makes sense—and I don’t expect a medal for it. It just seems like what a decent person would do.
We read about this character, and most readers (and reviews) can’t resist reducing him: “this rich white guy.” And sure, some of them are terrible. Some are great. But most—like most people—are just people. And because we are the protagonists of our own stories, we like to think of ourselves as neutral observers, somehow outside of the extremes that fiction is built on. We stand in the middle, looking left and right at the chaos. But who writes about the middle?
It’s boring, right? That’s the critique. This novel is too passive, too still. But maybe stillness is the point. Maybe boredom is just life without a narrative arc. What if this character—this guy who doesn’t need saving, who isn’t on a grand arc of self-destruction or redemption—is the person we should all hope to be the worst-case scenario?
As I was reading, I found myself looking up. I’m currently sitting in a room with two glass walls, 25 feet up. Reading this book, I thought: if I lived in a literal glass house, who would I want as my neighbor? What if I didn’t have all this space and fencing and privacy? What if I actually had to share life—not drama, not spectacle, but the boring, everyday rhythms of it—with someone?
I don’t know. But maybe it’s okay to just be a decent guy.
And maybe, if you’re not working, if you’re not plugged into a social network by necessity—no job, no agenda—what you do with your time, and who you spend it with, becomes the real story. Not one full of conflict or climax or catharsis, but one where connection is something you build quietly. With intention. Without spectacle.
Just life. Just okay. And maybe that’s enough.