Dept. of Speculation (Vintage Contemporaries)
From the acclaimed author of Weather comes a slim, stunning portrait of a marriage--a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all.
ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Vogue.com, Electric Literature, Buzzfeed
In the beginning, it was easy to imagine their future. They were young and giddy, sure of themselves and of their love for each other. “Dept. of Speculation” was their code name for all the thrilling uncertainties that lay ahead. Then they got married, had a child and navigated the familiar calamities of family life—a colicky baby, a faltering relationship, stalled ambitions.
When their marriage reaches a sudden breaking point, the wife tries to retrace the steps that have led them to this place, invoking everything from Kafka to the Stoics to doomed Russian cosmonauts as she analyzes what is lost and what remains. In language that shimmers with rage and longing and wit, Offill has created a brilliantly suspenseful love story—a novel to read in one sitting, even as its piercing meditations linger long after the last page.
ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Vogue.com, Electric Literature, Buzzfeed
In the beginning, it was easy to imagine their future. They were young and giddy, sure of themselves and of their love for each other. “Dept. of Speculation” was their code name for all the thrilling uncertainties that lay ahead. Then they got married, had a child and navigated the familiar calamities of family life—a colicky baby, a faltering relationship, stalled ambitions.
When their marriage reaches a sudden breaking point, the wife tries to retrace the steps that have led them to this place, invoking everything from Kafka to the Stoics to doomed Russian cosmonauts as she analyzes what is lost and what remains. In language that shimmers with rage and longing and wit, Offill has created a brilliantly suspenseful love story—a novel to read in one sitting, even as its piercing meditations linger long after the last page.
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Community Reviews
Books on the Nightstand recommend this one and they didn't get it wrong:
Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation is a read-in-one-sitting powerhouse of a novel, full of emotion and gorgeousness. It’s a look at a woman who is suffering a crisis in her marriage, written in the form of letters that read like journal entries. This isn’t an easy book to describe, but it’s a novel that works on many different levels and is quite unique in style.
This is a crazy ass book. I almost think I would recommend reading rather than listening, although listening was a bit of a trip. Super short book- 3 hours or 182 pages - we walk through a marriage that breaks down with the narrator, simply known as "The Wife".
Before The Wife became The Wife, she was single and fell in love. A baby girl came along, happiness was abundant even with a colicky baby. Then things settled and became ... there. The Husband found someone else but The Wife wasn't letting go.
As a reviewer of books, I shouldn't say I'm at a loss to describe why this book is worth the read and why it's so good. It's a stream of consciousness. It's lyrical. It's real. It's how I would imagine myself in a marriage - constant doubting of my ability to even be a normal human being. Doubting, but still trying anyways. Doubting, and being called The Crazy Wife. Trying not to ruin the little human I'm tasked with making into a responsible adult.
“Three things no one has ever said about me:
You make it look so easy.
You are very mysterious.
You need to take yourself more seriously.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
“How had she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and their gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
“What Rilke said: Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
So....give it a try. It's only 182 pages of your life
Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation is a read-in-one-sitting powerhouse of a novel, full of emotion and gorgeousness. It’s a look at a woman who is suffering a crisis in her marriage, written in the form of letters that read like journal entries. This isn’t an easy book to describe, but it’s a novel that works on many different levels and is quite unique in style.
This is a crazy ass book. I almost think I would recommend reading rather than listening, although listening was a bit of a trip. Super short book- 3 hours or 182 pages - we walk through a marriage that breaks down with the narrator, simply known as "The Wife".
Before The Wife became The Wife, she was single and fell in love. A baby girl came along, happiness was abundant even with a colicky baby. Then things settled and became ... there. The Husband found someone else but The Wife wasn't letting go.
As a reviewer of books, I shouldn't say I'm at a loss to describe why this book is worth the read and why it's so good. It's a stream of consciousness. It's lyrical. It's real. It's how I would imagine myself in a marriage - constant doubting of my ability to even be a normal human being. Doubting, but still trying anyways. Doubting, and being called The Crazy Wife. Trying not to ruin the little human I'm tasked with making into a responsible adult.
“Three things no one has ever said about me:
You make it look so easy.
You are very mysterious.
You need to take yourself more seriously.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
“How had she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and their gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
“What Rilke said: Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
So....give it a try. It's only 182 pages of your life
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Full of short prose of the running thoughts of the main character, it was interesting to see the author depict the character referring to herself from I/myself to the wife with moments of she/her. It was as if the main character was trying to find themselves in the identity of becoming a partner to a mother to the individual character. The short random facts and proverbs were interesting distractions and running concepts to the storyline.
This was a very quick read. I enjoyed the style of the book and it's that factor more than anything else that would lead me to recommend it. There isn't much plot, and where there is- it took a dark turn. I wasn't prepared for the dark turn from the beginning of the book but that's pretty accurate to real life. There was a lot that was left off the page in a way I didn't think was ideal.
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