Nine Perfect Strangers

"It’s a great thriller of its type. It’s tightly written. When I’m not writing on the 1970s, I’m an academic, a literary critic—I teach contemporary English literature—and I offer this here as a very good example of popular fiction. I don’t denigrate it for that. By calling it ‘fiction’, I mean it is yet to accumulate ‘literary’ status. I do think that will come, not least because it is a good go-to text if you want to get an overview of the contemporary stereotypes connected to wellness, both in terms of its seductions and its problems. I was going to nominate Michel Houellebecq’s Atomised (1998) on account of its excoriating depiction of a ‘New Age’ retreat-style resort. On balance, though, while Moriarty doesn’t bring to her book the same mordant gravitas as Houellebecq does to his, and while Nine Perfect Strangers is thus a comparatively much ‘lighter’ read, I think it would be hard to find another recent novel so immersed in or at least so in-tune with the glossy, Instagrammable exclusivity of modern wellness. Read the acknowledgements and you certainly get a sense that Moriarty has spent some time in a resort similar to the one she describes, and that she came away somewhat ambivalent. From this context she’s crafted a very engaging story, that is very much a page turner. All the shimmering attractions of the modern wellness industry are there—infinity pools, super-smoothies, personal wellness advisors—but so too are all the anxieties. The plot clearly veers towards an image of the wellness industry as something malevolent, even cultish, a set of practices that verge on brainwashing and which raise difficult questions about consent. All of these things were said about the Esalen Institute and have been said about similar institutions since the 1970s. It’s not without its problems as a novel. There are some plot elements that stretch credulity, and it is essentially a set of strangers in an ‘ old dark house ’, except of course Moriarty’s house is brand new and perpetually bathed in sunlight. At its best, though, Nine Perfect Strangers gets to the root of what I was trying to highlight in my own book. As a novel it is aware of the power of conviviality and the power of a certain kind of mutual care. For example, there’s one point, early on, where the central character—a weary, slightly cynical novelist—has a personal consultation with her assigned ‘wellness counsellor.’ When asked how she’s feeling, the novelist briefly let’s her guard down and with massive understatement (as the details of which the novel make clear) admits she has ‘actually been feeling very unwell lately.’ In response, the counsellor simply puts his hand on her shoulder and says: ‘I know you have.’ That’s it. There’s nothing sexual or sinister about it, it is simply a moment of comfort through human contact. It is a brief encounter, but one that’s incredibly emotional. It’s a moment that shows the power of non-judgemental understanding. I think that’s what Moriarty ultimately frames so well: the value of sympathetic human connection."