Is marriage modern? This is the circuitous premise of Australian writer Anna Kate Blair’s debut novel, The Modern, set in contemporary New York and centred on the life, half-loves and near-loves of Sophia, an Australian research fellow at MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art).
Sophia’s fellowship at MoMA is coming to an end. About to turn 30, she is facing future job precarity. In this transitional state, she becomes engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Robert – an academic and avid hiker, who plops a marriage proposal onto her lap, then embarks on a five-month trek through the Appalachian Mountains.
