The Gift by Barbara Browning
Barbara Browning’s The Gift is a deeply relevant and timely novel, in part because the underlying “gift” of the title refers to the struggle to be our better selves and to expect a better collective self from our institutions. Browning also recognizes that societal wellness lives in our understanding of and generosity toward our own bodies, and that, when all else fails, our bodies—what we do with them—harbor resistance.
Now that we’re in the midst of accelerating climate change, runaway consumerism, and the rise of Donald J. Trump, approaches to fiction that appeared relevant a decade ago are in the process of being rendered escapist, if not downright quaint. At first glance, Barbara Browning’s The Gift, with its focus on performance art and the relationship of creative people to the elements of their own existence and physicality, might appear too focused on arcane matters to speak to our moment. But this novel, it soon becomes clear, is deeply relevant and timely, in part because the underlying “gift” of
