What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Nick is 38 years old and the first-person narrator of the story. He has been married to Laura for nearly a year and a half, but they both were previously married to other people. Although the story is from Nick’s perspective, Mel and Terri’s dialogue forms the basis of the narrative. In turn, Nick and Laura function as their foils. Much of the conversation revolves around Ed, Terri’s ex-partner, and a road accident that Mel once attended. Nick sees Mel as superior, indicated by the repetition of his friend’s name in the first two lines of the story and how his profession entitles him to speak: “My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right” (126). Nick describes the physical appearance of the other characters, but the reader never knows what he looks like. Readers only learn his name through his wife, Laura: “Nick and I know what love is” (130).

Nick is a quiet presence. The narrative is structured in nine sections, and Nick only speaks five times throughout. In the first section, he maintains that he is unable to comment on the nature of Ed’s love because he does not know him.