NW

Natalie and Frank catapult themselves into professional and family life at a frantic pace. In a superficial sense, both Natalie and Frank have “made it.” The traditional pieces of urban/suburban domestic life fall into place for them one by one, as they enter their careers, acquire a home (then an even larger one), have children, and move up the socio-cultural-economic ladder. They appear to be success stories, a point most true for Natalie, given her humble roots. The couple represents, in this light, what characters like Felix and Michel aspire to achieve. 

Right alongside their chain of successes, however, “Host” makes Natalie’s existential crisis palpable. Career and family conflicts plague Natalie, for example. After avoiding having kids until seeming to cave in to pressure from Marcia to do so, Natalie remains uneasy with her children, reacting to them with “simple ambivalence.” On some level, this may be attributed to the aloofness and emotional detachment that has defined her since childhood. More poignantly, however, Natalie’s discomfort with juggling children and career directly points to a dilemma many women face in London and elsewhere. Even for a woman as academically, professionally, and economically successful and confident as Natalie, the challenges of having and raising children alongside a career can cause anxiety, depression, and other conflicts. Natalie’s problem is not localized to her life but rather is indicative of a widespread issue in the world she inhabits. 

Natalie’s growing boredom also emerges as a major theme. Despite her successes and achievements, she remains unfulfilled. Natalie approaches her proposed solution to her problem of boredom—casual threesomes with strangers—with her distinctive matter-of-factness. She begins by checking and signing up with sites for people seeking sex and then proceeds to check out each lead one by one. Ironically, on each of these rendezvous, Natalie seems more interested in the strangers’ houses and the objects in them than in the sex itself. This point suggests that the sex Natalie seeks is not ultimately what she yearns for, supported by the fact that none of the encounters leaves her satisfied.

As “Host” comes to a close and Frank discovers Natalie’s secret sexual pursuits, this sense of yearning in the face of outward success moves front and center. As NW has already shown several times through characters like Leah and Frank, life in northwest London is not always what it appears to be, and disaffection touches everyone. While “Host” closes by bringing conflicts of identity and purpose into intimate, private spaces (Frank’s and Natalie’s home and bedroom), the final two sections of NW bring them back out into public, along with a reminder of how those conflicts intersect with the physical and human geography of London.