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.

In this short novel, Offill uses short paragraphs to illustrate a marriage, the arrival of a baby, an affair and then the decision to try to work things out in the marriage. The title comes from the love letters they would write each other, speculating on their future and what it would hold. They each had a stack of these. With the arrival of a daughter, they learn that there is another kind of love they could not imagine before she came to them. But the strain of caring for a dependant child while working can often lead to marriage partners not spending enough time with and for each other. This book was named one of the ten best books of 2014 by the New York Times Review. Her work has received other awards such as being selected as a New York Times Notable Book and listed for the Women's Fiction Award. She was raised by two academic parents and attended UNC for her undergraduate degree. She works as a professor or visiting professor in various universities. It is amazing to see how she can build entire lives with short statements that accumulate and build a picture. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Jenny Offill's account of a relationship passing through its various stages, all from the perspective of "The Wife" is devastatingly true to life. I typically don't like stream of consciousness books, but this one pulled it off, thanks in part to the concise length. I was able to finish this one in two sittings, so the constant mental meandering didn't get wearisome. This is very much a "literary" book, so if you're looking for a plot, you won't find it in its conventional form here. It's very much character driven, and the turns of phrase Offill uses to describe what her protagonist feels about everything from raising a child to finding out that her husband had an affair are simply beautiful and incredibly insightful. The quotes and anecdotes woven throughout create a flow much like our own thoughts. I found that once I let myself get lost in that flow, I enjoyed the journey, even though it was gut-wrenching at times.

The thing that makes this book great is the way it’s written. The plot is extremely conventional (a single woman who dreams of being a great artist, meets “the one,” gets married, has a daughter, loses track of her dreams, then her husband starts to wander), but the way it’s told is so unique and often, especially in the first half, hilarious. The whole book is actually built from tiny observations, almost each paragraph is it’s own tiny little perfect thing. Sometimes it almost reads like a dead-pan stand-up comedian just riffing on whatever is going through their head. I really related to the main character’s somewhat troubled take on the modern world, as she tries to hold on, as she hopes to stay somewhat sane, as she tries to find her way back to herself. The book is filled with great observations, even the seemingly random stuff, quotes stumbled across, facts about the Voyager space mission, all help make the book feel perfectly complete in its complicatedly honest portrait of the challenge of keeping going.

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.

This slim novel was still fresh and satisfying. It reads like apparently disjointed musings united by the muser and in a lucid order relevant to her life. The juxtaposition of one reflection to the following one is fascinating and filled with elegant beauty. The whole experience was like reading a prose poem. We follow The Wife through her marriage, motherhood, career and their attending trials and tribulations by following her thoughts. We a inside her head with her and her perspective is our window on her life. This novel was without a wasted word and the stream of consciousness animates her character fully. Her life is an ordinary one but her inner life is rich and complex. A spare beautiful book to be experienced over a long solo lunch as if you were dining with a dear friend.

What an unlikeable, unreliable narrator. I assume the writing style was meant to be some sort of artful obtuseness, but it merely came across as sloppy writing. There are a handful of really great, insightful lines in this book - hence, the two stars. But it mostly just made me think I'd need Botox if the book were much longer because my brow was furrowed in annoyed disbelief during most of the time I spent reading it. There were actually a few things about the narrator that I identified rather strongly with as I read, but I just finished the book and I already can't remember what they were. I checked Kindle's "% read" function frequently, trying to gauge if there was still time for it to get better. There wasn't.

This book was on so many best of 2014 lists that I had to get it. I hoped I would not be disappointed and I definitely wasn't. It's a very fast read, a very short book but it does pack a lot of emotion into the sparse words. It tells the the story of the wife and her husband from start to, well, the finish of the book anyway. And it draws you completely into their marriage, their fight with bugs, their fights period. There aren't many but the wife seems to have a few issues whereas her husband seems to go with the flow, until he doesn't. Can they work out what happens between them? You will have to read it and find out. I think that the way it's written, with it's short chapters, makes the pace of the book, perfect. We go from meeting, to marriage, to child, to affair, at such a quick pace. It's one of those books that keeps you thinking "hmm" even after you're done reading.

Unfortunately the book was damaged and stained upon arrival

I have not been a reader for a long time and this is the first time I've read a book written in a "poetic" manner they say. I had a hard time understanding and getting into the story (which lasted till the end) but it was a good read.

A super book ! Different way of telling a story not usual but interesting. A must!

Dept. Of Speculation By Jenny Offill I am so glad that I happened upon this little gem of a book. ‘Department. Of Speculation’ is a very short book but the impacting style of the author on the reader compensates completely. ‘I secretly hope that I might be a genius - why else can no amount of sleeping pills fell my brain? But in the morning my daughter asks me what a cloud is; and I cannot say.’ The ‘Crippling Despair’ is portrayed so beautifully by the author’s poetic style and although there are many quotes from varied sources throughout this book, her own language spoke to me so eloquently. ‘When were you happiest? The air changed in that moment.’ ‘The Whiskey drinking was the result not the cause of the problem. Correlation IS NOT causation.’ Her loathing of her self is demonstrated along with her low self esteem: ‘I hate often and easily.’ She tells us that her husband is kind and she wonders: ‘Did she unkind and ungood and untrue him?’ ‘The invention of the ship is also the invention of the shipwreck.’ ‘What did you do today? I’d try my best to craft an anecdote for you out of nothing.’ I did not find this book in any way funny. I was captivated from the very first line through to the end. I was not laughing, I was awash with sadness reading this book and at times I felt like someone had taken a serpent’s tooth and ripped open my heart such was the anguish this author’s writing evoked in me. The only thing I did not like about this unique book was the title. I would suggest a change of title to: ‘Out Of Dark Waters, This’; which is just one of the many brilliant quotes from this thought provoking work. I realise that the title was chosen because that is how the husband and wife addressed letters to each other but having read the book twice and with profound sadness, I would consider the title just suggested as suitably apt. In my opinion this is a brilliant book from a strikingly sensitive author.

I like the impersonal language with the wife and the husband, no names, this is representative for any married couple... Could not stop reading for a day, the whole story is sad but true.