Dept. of Speculation

Marriage. What keeps a marriage together? Jenny Offill approaches an answer to that question in her novel, Dept. of Speculation. She wastes few words in this book: every sentence seems distilled to richness. We don’t live in narrative flow, and what flow there is in this book involves snippets of a little piece of this and that, which is precisely how we live. Our marriages become the sum of all the little things. Are we prepared for when a big thing comes along? How will we stay together after infidelity? What is fulfillment? When I sat down to read this novel, the quirky snippets seemed to be leading nowhere. Before long, I realized that Offill was piecing together a portrait of modern lives that captures marriage in all its joy and struggle. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase Dept of Speculation from amazon.com.