The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

“Imagine you’re a bird. You can be any kind of bird, but those of you who’ve chosen ostrich or chicken are going to struggle to keep up. Now, imagine you’re coasting through the skies above Los Angeles, coughing occasionally in the smog. Shiny ribbons of traffic spangle below you, and in the distance you see an impossibly verdant patch, like a green darn in a gray sock.”

These opening sentences directly address the reader in order to increase engagement, and the passage also introduces an element of humor with the joke about being a chicken or ostrich (birds that don’t fly). As the author describes the setting of Los Angeles, the narrative zoom in on Larchmont in an almost cinematic fashion that reflects the protagonist’s professed love of movies. In a novel about books and fiction, this explicitly metafictional approach establishes an increased awareness of the novel as a work of fiction, but because this approach can also prove distracting if employed to excess, it is abandoned in favor of more conventional narrative approaches as the story unfolds.

“The trivia, the reading, the book clubs…they were simply weapons of self-defense.”

In the novel’s early chapters, Nina is established as a person who tries to handle her anxiety and active imagination by distracting herself with frequent social activities. As the discovery of her family prompts new inner growth, she will learn to abandon these strategies and embrace a more meaningful way of relating to the people around her, there by illustrating the theme of Embracing Change and Broadening Social Connections.