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There's a character in Jenny
Offill's acclaimed first novel,

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Last Days, that I've
thought about again

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and again as I've tried to
write this introduction.

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His name is Edgar and
he is a neighborhood boy

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incredibly impressed and smitten
by the mother of the narrator

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of the novel, A woman named
Anna, who is brilliant,

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and hilarious, and
intense, and who

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spends much of the
book instructing

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her daughter on topics like
endangered animals, creation

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myths, and the beginnings
of the universe.

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So to impress this
woman, Edgar decides

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that he will become a futurist.

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He will try some black and pass
around pamphlets with lines

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like, "Let's break away
from rationality, as out

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of a horrible husk, and
throw ourselves like pride

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spiced fruit into the immense
distorted mouth of the wind."

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When the narrator brings one
of these pamphlets to Anna,

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she briefly looks it over before
tossing it aside and saying,

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"Those aren't even
his own words.

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Edgar comes from a long line of
decadent and over bred people."

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And I sympathize with
Edgar completely here,

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because how could I
possibly bring my own words

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in front of Jenny Offill even
to talk about her writing?

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At times, this
introduction has just

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been a long list of all my
favorite quotes from Dept.

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of Speculation, her
latest novel, which

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was named one of the 10
Best Books of the year

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by The New York
Times, and shortlisted

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for the PEN/Faulkner, the Folio
Award, the DUBLIN Literary

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Award.

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In addition to her
novels, she has also

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been the author of
four children's books,

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and co-editor of two
essay anthologies

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with Elissa Schappell.

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And she is also an author
that does everything right,

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and can do it in the space
that another writer might

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use to describe a cabinet.

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Her novels are
concerned the subjects

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of growing up and getting older,
of the frustration of ambition,

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the difficulties and betrayals
and deep joys of parenthood

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and marriage.

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In short, all the
aspects of our lives

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which are daily the most present
and intense preoccupations we

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have, and Offill is able
to render these experiences

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with the immediacy and the
absurdity with which we receive

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them.

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A chapter of Dept.
of Speculation

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can begin with the panic
of the narrator's child

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breaking her wrists, move to the
guilt of getting her to the ER,

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through the relief
and humor when

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the child is put on morphine,
and begins to describe how she

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will get a dozen donuts
as a reward for this,

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and take one bite
out of each of them.

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And it will end that
night in an idyll

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of domesticity and comfort from
which I'll quote at length.

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"We all pile into the big bed.

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There is a musty animal
smell to her casts now.

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She brings in the nightlight
that makes fake stars

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and places it on
the bedside table.

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Soon, everyone is asleep but me.

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I lie in our bed and listen
to the hum of the air

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conditioning, and the soft
sound of their breathing.

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Amazing.

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Out of the dark waters, this."

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And all of this in four pages of
paragraph-long fragments, which

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also makes room for meditations
on Christian Science

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and quotes from Wittgenstein.

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Offill's intense, curious prose,
and her ambitious, and funny,

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and fully-human
characters range widely

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through the realms of
philosophy, history,

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and science in order to make
sense of their own lives.

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From the brashness of
futurism, to the loneliness

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of polar and space exploration,
to the fundamental shifting

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realities of molecular biology,
as when the narrator of Dept.

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of Speculation is processing
a deep betrayal and thinks,

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"Once ether was everywhere,
the crook of an arm,

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say, also the heavens.

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It slowed the
movement of the stars,

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told the left hand
where a right hand went.

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Then it was gone like hysteria,
like the hollow Earth.

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The news came over the
radio, there's only air

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now, abandon your experiments."

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As I mentioned, I'd rather
read her prose on my own.

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And through her quick
and gorgeous sentences,

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her inexhaustible
knowledge and curiosity,

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and her acute eye
for everyday reality,

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it feels like
everything's been said.

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One can read her novels from
start to finish on a plane ride

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or in an evening and
feel by the end of each

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as if an entire life
has been captured,

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and no more words are necessary.

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Please welcome Jenny Offill.