Nini Berndt’s stunning debut novel opens with an interesting epigraph. It is a quote by postmodern American writer Donald Barthelme that begins, “There is no particular point to any of this behavior.” It continues with a few seemingly contradictory statements, ultimately asking readers to consider truth, volition and want. These concepts are explored with insight, compassion and sharp emotional intelligence in this book, titled --- perhaps in conversation with Barthelme --- THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS.

About a year ago, 21-year-old Lucy’s brother, Mikey, died. He had left home and settled in Denver. For the siblings, raised in a dusty, downtrodden small town of the American plains, in a near and not-quite-apocalyptic future, Denver is a city of possibility and freedom. Escaping their dysfunctional family, especially his mother’s toxic and abusive attentions, Mikey always meant to bring Lucy with him. But when the day came, their mother kept her away and Mikey finally left alone. In Denver, he worked in a hotel and called Lucy every day to share details of his new life and long-sought-after liberty. Yet, after telling Lucy about his new friend, Helen, he began to pull away from her just a bit --- and stopped calling her. 

"Berndt’s prose is lovely and stinging, and overall the novel is tense, full of beauty and sorrow. It is a sincere but also strange, gorgeous, smart and challenging...exploration of love and need, want and choice."

Eventually Lucy makes her own way to Denver. The goal is to find Helen and learn about her, as well as Mikey’s last days and his death. Lucy rents the apartment across the hall from Helen and spends her days watching the woman come and go. She sees her leaving to shop and work and sometimes returning with women who spend the night but don’t seem to come back. Berndt also gives readers Helen’s perspective. She is a person mostly alone and, since Mikey’s death, lonely. Her job requires physical and emotional vulnerability in a world that is increasingly desperate, and that desperation brings her to the home of Raena, who is beautiful, rich and demanding. Helen introduces Raena to Mikey, which sets off a slow chain of reaction fueled by lust, drugs, art and artifice, resulting in disaster. 

Months later, when Lucy and Helen finally meet, their connection is as strong as the one felt by Helen and Mikey, though they are carrying burdens and secrets that they keep to themselves. Helen doesn’t know that Lucy is Mikey’s sister, and Lucy doesn’t know all the details of the life Mikey was living with Helen. Both are wrestling with a profound and life-changing loss and grappling with how they will move forward, perhaps together, even as the world crumbles around them.

THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS balances a bleak social landscape with the hopefulness of many kinds of love. Berndt’s future-setting details enhance rather than detract from the story, adding to the sense of both urgency and apathy that the characters feel. Mostly, though, they feel love deeply, long to understand themselves and each other, and are searching for connection and meaning in a crumbling and isolating world.

Berndt’s prose is lovely and stinging, and overall the novel is tense, full of beauty and sorrow. It is a sincere but also strange, gorgeous, smart and challenging (like Mikey himself) exploration of love and need, want and choice. This is a highly recommended book.