Dept. of Speculation (Vintage Contemporaries)

My first book of 2023, was Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, a flash novella about a woman experiencing first-time motherhood, a cheating husband, and writer's loneliness.First, a word about format. I'm reading a lot of flash novellas because that's what I want to write. In service of that, I made a list of well-regarded books that might fall into, or at least lie adjacent to, that quasi-category. My definition is that flash novella is a set of loosely linked short stories that form a (somewhat) cohesive whole. The individual stories or passages can often standalone, but are linked in theme, characters, and a sense of movement. Offill’s book (as well as a more recent one called Weather) are on my short, yet distinguished list (a couple more below).I loved this book. Its brevity makes it possible to finish in one sitting, but it's worth pacing yourself. As Offill describes in the interview below, the book doesn’t really have a plot. What it has is movement and escalation; a compelling narrator; beautiful, considering prose; and, individual passages worth slowing down for.There's also this wonderful subtle movement within the 3rd person perspective. The story is told partly in a distant 3rd person – the main characters are wife, husband, daughter, while first names are reserved for bit side characters. But there's another version, much more intimate, narrated as though the wife is talking about herself in the 3rd person. The passing from one to the other is seamless. Things happen, but most of the movement occurs through the inner workings of the wife, who has a great self-deprecating humor.The text on the page has a visual configuration reminiscent of poetry. There are typically 7-8 short paragraphs with large blank white spaces in between. The spaces have the effect of creating a consistent rhythm and pacing that pauses and brings the reader closer to the action and the prose. As a reader you pay attention differently, I think. And for the writer, they signify what’s left unsaid in the story and between the characters.Each passage (or paragraph) stands alone as its own micro story provoking emotion and contemplation regardless of where it leads.Here’s an example:Researchers looked at magnetic resonance images of the brains of people who described themselves as newly in love. They were shown a photograph of their beloveds while their brains were scanned for activity. The scan showed the same reward systems being activated as in the brains of addicts given a drug.​Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!​For most married people, the standard pattern is a decrease of passionate love, but an increase in deep attachment. It is thought that this attachment response evolved in order to keep partners together long enough to have and raise children. Most mammals don’t raise their offspring together, but humans do.​There is nowhere to cry in this city. But the wife has an idea one day. There is a cemetery half a mile from their apartment. Perhaps one could wander through it sobbing without unnerving anyone. Perhaps one could flap one’s hands even.This style of standalone, linked fiction is what I'm most drawn to right now. Aside from being funny, maybe I like the idea of stories, descriptions, and mundane but indelible moments not weighed down with the responsibility of being essential to the whole.

I decided to read this book after attending a panel at the LA Times Book Festival at USC entitled "The Human Condition". The panel consisted of four authors of Contemporary Literary Fiction, of which Ms. Offill was included. I had actually been drawn to this panel by another of the participating authors, who is a long time favorite, but was drawn to Jenny Offill's charismatic presentation. When I came home and downloaded "Dept. of Speculation" I was immediately reminded of the panel's title. This little meditation is completely devoted to "the human condition".I don't know that this can really be called a "novel". Or, even a "novella"...it is really a stream of consciousness offering of an extremely painful period in a young marriage. It feels like the author set down with a scrap of paper and just started writing down all of the thoughts that were running through her tortured mind. She is experiencing the worst kind of personal betrayal. She is struggling with herself, vacillating between attempting to come to terms with what has happened between herself and her husband, intellectualizing the situation, and just screaming in agonizing and raw misery. She includes many compelling and relevant quotes and the everyday minutia of trying to bring normalcy to parenting her small daughter under such adversity. Somehow, this works. It caused me to reflect upon Jamaica Kinkaid's "See, Now, Then". She also documented her failing marriage in the same soul baring fashion that hits the reader in the stomach so hard that it takes their breath away. Reminding all of us how universal this particular brand of pain is, assaulting all female hearts in the same devastating way, regardless of ethnicity or culture. I enthusiastically recommend both books.I look forward to more from Jenny Offill. She is absolutely someone I would like to know.

A rare find, a book like this. You start reading the book, and find short sentences and paragraphs, but the more you keep reading, It all begins to make sense. Sparse is not the right word, but this is a book of 192 pages, of observations and small spaces in timeWhat we know a woman is narrating the book, as we read along,we can start to see this woman and the man she meets in our mind's eye. We observe the places and people she talks about. The man and woman meet, no names are ever mentioned, they marry, purchase a home, have a child, and go through their days as a couple with a child. The child takes all the wife's time, she cries a lot, but stops crying when brought to the pharmacy store down the street. The child grows, the marriage grows, upsets in the marriage, as life moves on.The wife plans a party, the child is excited, the people come, the child mingles for a bit, and then says "party over, go home". This is their life, the woman, the man the child. This is a simple story, no excess, each word has meaning in its placement. I was sad when the book ended, 'Is that all there is?'Recommended. prisrob 10-12-16

After reading this book, I don’t think it quite fits into the category, but hey ho, the end of the year is approaching and I’m not going to start changing things now. I found this book incredibly sad. The marriage of the two main characters is disintegrating and the book consists of extracts from love letters written to each other before they were married and in the early days of marriage before things turned sour. I found it incredibly sad how things gradually started to crumble. The book is funny at times, darkly funny tinged with sadness and regret. I really felt for the characters. I didn’t expect to be some moved by their situation. I’d love to see what else the author has written.

I am really puzzled by some of the sneering reviews here, as I found this book to be genuinely moving -- an experimental, which is to say original, approach to what is admittedly an old story, but the reason it's old is that it does happen in life so often. What impressed me was that Offill managed to convey it without exactly telling it, to get the facts across obliquely, since we all know the bare outlines already. But what impressed me even more was that, unlike most experimental novels, or novels with lots of intellectual references, it wasn't some kind of exercise in cerebration; it was suffused with the kind of tenderness you just can't fake. I agree with a previous reviewer that 10:04 and How Should a Person Be? were merely irritatingly narcissistic, but I truly didn't feel that way about this book.

One to read and re-readOf all the books I read last year, and recommend to friends, this is near the top of my list. It's a tiny novel, but it's packed like a hand-grenade with the thoughts and ideas of a woman whose marriage is in crisis and whose life - initially happy - seems to be unravelling. All this despite the fact it contains some of the elements I find most off-putting about novels written by creative writing teachers: references to students and writing. Added to this is the fact that it is set in New York, a city already obsessed with itself. And yet I was utterly seduced by Offill's needle-sharp observations and the wry hilarity of her style. The protagonist skewers her own self-pity, and in doing so, makes you smile. She is a great comic writer.

This is a book about a relationship told from the point of view of the woman. Like so much in women's lives it is fragmented. Parts of it seem like the narrator has dissociated from herself. She starts speaking of herself as "the wife". The form does as much to convey the emotional tenor of the relationship as the words do. Both are used masterfully to convey the arc of a relationship. It doesn't have a neat ending. It does have hope. This book won't be for everyone. But for those it is for, it is a wonderful book.

I know it is not my cup of tea in books. I prefer a story that flows. This one keeps quoting poets and scientists all the time. I know it is what the wife thinks and what is going in her head but the effect of this on my is very off putting. I wish I could get my money back. Nevertheless, the seller was prompt and good.