Dept. of Speculation

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (2014) 177 pages

Jenny Offill's small book packs a wallop in its quiet way. The short chapters are not really composed of paragraphs, but what look like unrelated thoughts set near each other. Keep reading (it's impossible to stop, anyway) and a story grabs hold, pulling you into the lives of the wife, the husband, and the child (all unnamed). Pithy thoughts, some by famous philosophers, are sprinkled around the boundaries of the sketched-out story line.

Here's something that stuck with me (page 114): "... 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."

Thoughtful and poignant.