My Year of Living Vulnerably (Updated)

 

Rick Morton's first book, A Hundred Years of Dirt, was like an electric shock: a blunt, uncompromising tale of pain and struggle. His follow up, My Year of Living Vulnerably, is looser, more diffuse: less of a powerful gut punch, more a series of taps on the head. It's a collection of meditations or reflections on a range of topics -- masculinity, animals, loneliness, humour, touch -- but above all, love and connection, which is, as he accurately concludes, the one thing that gets us all out of bed and out into the world.

Morton is always good company, dry and self-deprecating, but sometimes these essays drift into rambling discursions that might have benefited from a tighter structure. With this title, I almost expected a literal account of a year, but this book is a lot looser than that. It is a sequel to the earlier book in a way, as he explore the consequences of the trauma that he outlines so chillingly in the first volume. I love Rick Morton and he is always worth reading, as a thoughtful and insightful male writer, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Update: I forgot to point out links with other books that I was reading at the same time! Morton quotes from George Saunders, who wrote A Swim in a Pond in the Rain; he vapes with heated tobacco, as described by John Safran; and of course he lives with anxiety and PTSD, just like Steve Stossel. So lots of connections.