Jhanvi, the protagonist of Naomi Kanakia’s novel The Default World, refers to an ongoing project of hers as a “marriage plot” a few times over the course of the book. This is an eminently accurate description of what Jhanvi is up to: she’s in the process of trying to marry a tech-bro friend of hers so that his health insurance will cover her gender-affirming care. But it’s also a nod on Kanakia’s part to the territory she’s entered with this book. On the one hand, it’s a spot-on satire of a certain segment of the tech world; on the other hand, it’s a book that’s in the grand tradition of, say, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country.
