Patricia lockwood no one is talking about this

For a while, Lockwood-whose debut novel, No One Is Talking about This, is narrated by a woman who is, at its start, Extremely Online-could barely even hold her phone. “I used to be able to scroll until I couldn’t feel my fingertip.” But now, she can’t scroll at all.

“I actually feel a fiery, burning sensation,” Lockwood told me over the phone recently. Since Patricia Lockwood contracted coronavirus last March, she has grappled with a variety of what are considered long-term symptoms of the disease, including intense neuropathy-damage to the brain and spinal cord that often manifests as pain in the hands and feet, concentrated in the clusters of nerves that gather at these farthest reaches of the body. Bristling with nerve endings, they are in constant communication with our brains as they relay information and act on impulses they don’t respond to our consciousness, but rather form it-ten different starting points for our thoughts and feelings.

Our fingertips are among the most sensitive parts of our bodies.