BookBrowse Reviews Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his early forties, is stricken with acute abdominal pain. The COVID pandemic is raging and he's reluctant to visit the hospital, but after suffering at home for a few days, he finally capitulates to his alarmed partner and ends up in the ER, where doctors discover that he has a life-threatening aortic tear.

The rest of the novel is mostly set in the ICU, where the narrator is tethered to his hospital bed with IV lines and sensors, but where his mind roams freely and widely. Greenwell is a master at creating intimacy; the poet seems to speak directly to the reader, and his narrative voice is compelling: sometimes self-critical and dismissive of his perceptions, but also empathic and reflective.

"I sat in a chair while she took my blood pressure and temperature….I disliked her, I ...