Last Things by Jenny Offill

Mad mother with little girl

Anna, seven year old Grace’s mother, is exhilarating. She works at a bird sanctuary, weeping at the plight of the passenger pigeon. However, she also takes midnight swims with her daughter in the treacherous lake, afterwards driving naked through town. Grace’s father, Jonathan, a chemistry teacher rejecting fantasy and organized religion, is destined to become “Mr. Science”, a character on tv. As Grace becomes increasingly unhinged, bewitching the local16 year old babysitter/mold genius, she and Anna take a road trip (or flee) to New Orleans and beyond, until Anna secretly telephones her father for rescue. Grace, deeply hurt, then disappears for good.

As in Dept. of Speculation, the language and imagery are exquisitely beautiful. A mosaic of compelling snapshots gradually create a plot. The book is constructed of short chunks of scenes and off-kilter facts, such as can be found in an encyclopedia. The reader must draw conclusions, although the somewhat fey lyricisms started to wear a bit in the middle -- is this story going anywhere? Also, the end didn’t quite feel like an end – the little girl didn’t want it to be an end.

There are many delightful conceits here. The secret coded language of Annic. The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained. Grace’s detective kit. There’s an underlying thematic symbolic structured (yes perhaps coded) that would make rereading it worthwhile.

Dept. Of Speculation by Jenny Offill

An affair threatens a marriage and much more

Somewhere in Brooklyn, an acerbic writer whose motivation sputters because of money pressures, a new baby and a bedbug infestation, realizes her loyal Midwestern husband might have fallen in love with another woman. The realization shocks her, threatening her comfortably bohemian lifestyle, the happiness of her child, and even her sanity. The author takes a hackneyed low stakes theme – adultery among the hipster classes, and uses highly lyrical paragraphs, pithy chunks of philosophy, a humorous perspective and a structure encompassing courtship, baby, affair, and reconciliation to build a surprisingly gripping novel.

This is an exquisite jewel of a book in which questions about ambition, love, family life and existence are explored. There is much wisdom, as well as a lot of very effective plotting and character development in 177 pages (tiny pages too with lots of white space). The novel is very funny and feels packed with interior jokes and themes that bounce off each other. The most impressive thing about this book is the lyrical prose, which begs rereading. The typical plot scaffolding is missing – the actual facts of the adultery are implied. Although I didn’t really emotionally understand the wife’s jealousy, I understood both parents' desire to keep their child free of pain. The husband, however, seemed like sort of a drip and I'm not sure I bought the happy "ending."