The Tactile Anxieties of Medical Fiction

In an era of increasing medical costs, heated political debates over the nature of healthcare, and financial instability, reading about all things medical can be as unsettling as the most unpredictable of horror stories. There have been a host of acclaimed works of nonfiction dealing with their authors’ experiences with illnesses and the medical system in recent years, including Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, Joshua Mohr’s Sirens, and Porochista Khakpour’s Sick. But numerous recent works of fiction have also grappled with how people deal with the sudden onset of sickness, the calamitous effects of a sudden illness or injury, and the precipitousness of life with a chronic medical condition. These works can shine a light into imagined lives — and help us extrapolate how we might fare under similar conditions.

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At the center of Don Lee’s novel Lonesome Lies Before Us is a musician named Yadin Park–a man in his forties with his roots in the alt-country scene and a penchant for offbeat side projects and forays into an array of genres. Being a cult musician hasn’t exactly brought him a life of financial stability, and as the novel opens, he’s been working for a carpeting company in an economically devastated California town. Early on, he has a moment where he savors the auditory landscape in a decidedly bittersweet way.