Author: Jenny Offill
Title: Dept. of Speculation
Narrator: Jenny Offill
Publication Info: Holland, OH : Dreamscape Media, LLC, [2014]
Summary/Review:
This work is an experimental novel about a writer in Brooklyn, her marriage, and parenthood. It’s written in a series of short chapters and vignettes. Sometimes it feels like the narrator is going on about little things, but then sometimes there is a sentence or two that pithily captures a truth about the human condition. No one in the story has a name – just the wife, the husband, and the daughter. The child grows and changes, the husband commits adultery, they move to the country. Everything is kept at a distance only to be periodically punctured by pain and regret. I appreciate what Offill is trying to do, but on the other hand this book didn’t really resonate with me.
Recommended books: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Monkeys by Susan Minot, and Severance: Stories by Robert Olen Butler.
Rating: ***
