The Test

For most of human history, life has been nasty, brutish, and short. Even the most romanticized and glorified ages—the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Ancient Athens—were still cauldrons of war, disease, poverty, and grueling labor. Of course, people expect epochs from the distant past to be somewhat cruel and barbaric, but what historians consider the late modern era was no less merciless on its population. The modern nineteenth century is associated with scientific advancement and the rise of democracy, but anyone who expected life to be something less than calamitous in these times was fooling himself. In the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, parents were still burying most of their children, men were working eighty-hour weeks in smoke-filled factories, and kings and tsars were nonchalantly sending fleets of peasants to the front lines of megalomaniacal wars. It was probably only after World War II that the West ceased being a place of acute and pervasive suffering.
In those times, people were captivated by the idea that an Eden lay beyond the grave, or that a Utopia lay beyond the revolution. These were almost necessary beliefs for people who knew nothing close to Eden or Utopia on Earth.
Fast-forward to a study abroad trip in 2007 in the South of France, where this novel takes place. By this point in history, life in the West is now not nasty, brutish, and short, but fun, pleasant, and very long. In fact, life itself is so wonderful and enjoyable in these times, that the joy of day-to-day existence alone can be a person’s raison-d’être. And for American college kids in a world of abundant sunshine, cobblestone villages, and sidewalk cafés, life is almost certain to be not only joyful, but blissful and euphoric.
Marie Weltstern, the story’s protagonist, comes into the semester with the highest expectations for her study abroad experience. She wants everything that the image of study abroad has to offer: an amorous fling with a foreign man or two, group photos in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum, candid shots of her and her girlfriends laughing hysterically while holding large glasses of beer, and a basic mood that oscillates between ecstasy and tranquility.
But as she sits in class on the first day of the semester, Marie realizes that the contentedness of her study abroad experience is under serious threat. As a freshman, Marie had engaged in unprotected oral sex with her boyfriend who had been somewhat promiscuous in the past with other girls. This sexual act, Marie knows, carries with it the very tiny chance of HIV transmission. To enjoy her semester to the fullest, Marie knows that she must remove this lingering doubt from her mind. She gets an HIV test on the first day of school. The test comes back negative, and Marie is able to enjoy France the way she pictured herself enjoying it—at least, for now.
A brief kiss at a party causes Marie’s unrest to return one hundredfold. She fears that the guy she kissed had blood in his mouth and that she is once again at an infinitesimal risk of having contracted HIV. But now she can’t decide whether to get tested, as she realizes that getting this unwarranted test will weaken her ability to forego unwarranted HIV tests in the future. This dilemma fills Marie with anxiety and fear. In this disturbed state, Marie watches with unhappiness as her carefree and beautiful friends enjoy the semester the way it was supposed to be enjoyed. Still, Marie remains determined to salvage her semester and figure out a way to stop obsessing about HIV.
As The Test journeys through Marie’s innermost thoughts, it also takes its readers on a tour of France. Marie and her friends travel all over the country together, from the south to the north, the city to the forest, and the dance club to the monastery. Through these adventures and the relationships she forms along the way, Marie slowly begins to understand and take control of her fears.