No One is Talking About This

Patricia Lockwood published the novel No One Is Talking About This in 2021. Lockwood is a poet known for her short-form poetry posted on Twitter and her memoir Priestdaddy (2017). No One Is Talking About This, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, depicts an unnamed protagonist navigating a life devoted to maintaining an online presence through social media and blog posts. When her sister’s unborn child is diagnosed with Proteus syndrome, the protagonist puts her online life on hold to support her family. This summary uses the paperback edition published in February 2022. Page numbers correspond to this version.

Plot Summary

The unnamed female protagonist of No One Is Talking About This is an influencer on the portal, the word she uses to describe the online social media, news, and blog sources that she obsessively follows. After rising to fame in the portal, the protagonist becomes a public speaker and teacher focusing on questions the portal presents to modern global society. She lives with her husband in an unspecified city and spends her days keeping track of trends in the portal and debating American conservatives online.

In Part 1 of the novel, the protagonist struggles with her increasing sense of physical and mental dissociation caused by spending so much time on the portal. She is often disturbed by friends “disappearing” from the portal but at the same time is intrigued by their ability to separate themselves from life online. She asks her husband for a safe in which to lock her phone, but after two days her resolve breaks, and she desperately pleads with her husband to return her phone. The brief moments of celebrity that the protagonist experiences when one of her posts in the portal does well are her primary source of self-confidence and contentment.

In Part 2, the protagonist’s posts have made her a celebrity, and she travels the globe to speaking events. She then receives a text message from her mother saying that something has gone wrong with her sister’s pregnancy and asking her to return to her childhood home as soon as possible. The protagonist promptly puts her life on hold and joins her family in Ohio. She learns that her unborn niece has Proteus syndrome, a severe condition characterized by asymmetrical and rapid bodily growth and the inability to form neural synapses. The sister’s pregnancy threatens her life, but Ohio’s conservative reproductive laws determine that she is too far into her pregnancy for an abortion. Though the protagonist and her sister briefly consider driving to another state for an abortion, the sister decides against this as it would irrevocably separate her from their conservative parents.

The protagonist moves in with her sister and is there for the baby’s birth. The baby lives despite the predictions of the doctors. She infant is admitted to intensive care at the hospital, where the protagonist, the sister, and their parents spend each day. Since the baby’s birth, the protagonist has stepped back from the portal and no longer identifies with the issues under debate. Her sole focus is her family and, especially, the baby. Soon, they move the baby from the hospital to the sister’s home. Though the baby suffers from seizures and inconsistent health, the family does all they can to comfort her, including a trip to Disney World. None of the family posts about the baby in the portal. The sister attempts to write a letter to her state representative about the cost of her healthcare and her inability to work after pregnancy. However, the letter is never sent.

The infant dies at six months old. The protagonist and her family are devastated. After they hold a funeral for the child and celebrate her life, the protagonist finds that she cannot return to her old life and her obsession with the portal. The baby made her realize the importance of a life offline, one with meaning and purpose. The protagonist is invited to speak about the portal at the British Museum but fails to deliver an authentic speech as she is no longer invested in the topic. After the speech, she is invited to a busy club where her phone is stolen. The protagonist sees the theft happening but does not intervene, hoping the pictures of the baby on her phone will spread hope and love among the people who may see them.