So Lucky
by Nicola Griffith
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted June 7, 2025
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It is hard to say whether I recommend this. It is a novel, but also somewhat autobiographical. It is either brutally honest, or perhaps just the result of traumatic nightmares, a worst case fictional scenario, not what Griffith experienced personally. It might be too realistic for some readers, bringing up memories of their own traumas, even if different from the author/character. Written in first-person, the narrator is Mara Tagarelli, an activist/organizer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the budget coordinator for GAP, the Georgia AIDS Partnership, which has connections to other state and national organizations. The way this intersects with Griffith's life experience is that she shares a medical diagnosis with Mara; multiple sclerosis.
Mara's condition deteriorates quickly, with pain, lack of coordination, anger, and paranoia. Her anger causes her to alienate superiors and co-workers at GAP. She is let go, but a six month salary at 65% is approved, and she negotiates for another year of health insurance. Mara channels her anger toward what she knows best, organizing and research. Her online campaign begins on Twitter, with a long thread using the hashtag #CripRage. Griffith had similarly organized other disabled writers using #CripLit. So Lucky was published in 2018, about 25 years following Griffith's diagnosis. She also wrote a memoir in 2007, but I don't know if MS is mentioned that much in And Now We Are Going to Have a Party. That was a limited edition (450 copies?), mentioned on her website as being available from only two bookstores, one in Seattle, the other St. Louis, but I'm not sure if that is still the case. I found only one listing through bookfinder.com. Nearly $500.
Her paranoia manifests as sensing someone is behind her, but when she turns no one is there. She also sees threats in every shadow, or images reflected in mirrors, framed photos under glass, and windows. She also sees things that are not there, or at least other people tell her they are not there. That includes a dog brought to a therapy session by a woman who claims to be the oldest living MS sufferer. No one else sees the dog, and the therapist swears there had never been a dog at any of her sessions. The novel is also a bit of a thriller. Part of Mara's organizing of other MS patients includes creating mailing lists, and selling those lists to organizations that might contribute funds for research, as well as providing equipment such as wheelchairs, canes, medications, and support animals. Is it just Mara's paranoia, or is someone using the mailing lists to target vulnerable people? A frequent contributor to online discussions, a man in Minnesota, is murdered. Then in Wisconsin, a woman's house is broken into. Luckily she is not there, but the place is trashed and all her medications destroyed. The next case is in Iowa, which means if all are connected, the perpetrators have crossed state lines, making it a potential FBI case. Yet Mara cannot get anyone to acknowledge her complaints and suspicions. That is, until similar cases arise in Kentucky and Tennessee. Mara is convinced they are coming for her soon.
#CripRage is a valid reaction. Mara senses how others now see her, less than she was before, less important, less valuable. Anger is also a valid response to that, which any sympathetic, empathetic person should be able to understand. One of the first things Mara tried to do at GAP, before she revealed her diagnosis, was to authorize a new ramp at the front of the building, whereas there was only one in the back for employees. Her supervisor turns her down, which led to anger, and that anger was strong enough for her to include profanity in a office-wide memo without realizing it before she hit 'send.' Now it is seven years after this book was published, and we are seeing efforts to limit, if not eliminate, the ADA (the Americans with Disabilites Act), as well as the cancelling of many avenues of medical research, and without checking I have to assume that may also include research into MS. We all should be angry about that, not just Mara, not just Nicola. But we should also acknowledge how we are so lucky to have Nicola still writing, still informing us of our humanity, our connectedness. We are so lucky that SFWA has honored her as a Grand Master. Even if what I have said about this book doesn't interest you, maybe even frightens you away, that is no reason not to check out her other work. Links to all of my reviews are now collected on a new page, my Nicola Griffith Index, which is also linked to on her name below the title above.
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