Dept. of Speculation

"My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella, Vera licked his stamps for him."

This is an early passage in Jenny Offill's novel about marriage, Dept. of Speculation, that is quite unlike any novel I've read before. The first half or so is a collection of discrete thoughts, noodling, really, or like blog entries. Such as: "There is a story about a prisoner at Alcatraz who spent his nights in solitary confinement dropping a button on the floor then trying to find it again in the dark. Each night, in this manner, he passed the hours until dawn. I do not have a button. In all other respects, my nights are the same."

The narrator is a writer and professor. She is ghost-writing a book by an "almost astronaut" who wants to write about the history of space exploration. She has a husband: "He is famously kind, my husband. Always sending money to those afflicted with obscure diseases or shoveling the walk of the crazy neighbor or helloing the fat girl at Rite Aid. He's from Ohio. This means he never forgets to thank the bus driver or pushes in front if front at the baggage claim."

This unnamed couple has a daughter who says cute things. This goes on for about 100 pages, very funny, but I was wondering where the conflict was. Then, boom! The style changes from first person to third, and "the wife" is now wondering if her husband is having an affair. Things turn very dark. "There is nowhere to cry in this city.But the wife has an idea one day. There is a cemetery half a mile from their apartment. Perhaps one could wander through it sobbing without unnerving anyone. Perhaps one could flap one's hands even."

The couple move to the country and try to save their marriage, but something is broken. "At night, they lie in bed holding hands. It is possible if she is stealthy enough that the wife can do this while secretly giving the husband the finger."

At the root of it, this would seem to be a book about the necessity of forgiveness, but also the near impossibility of it for something like this level of betrayal. I particularly liked this passage, which is a great answer to the excuse, many times given by a male, about temptation: "She has wanted to sleep with other people, of course. One or two in particular. But the truth is she has good impulse control. That is why she isn't dead. Also why she became a writer instead of a heroin addict. She thinks before she acts. Or more properly, she thinks instead of acts. A character flaw, not a virtue."

Dept. of Speculation is a short, funny, and then searing book about the peculiar institution of marriage. I highly recommend it, except to those couples who are going through the same thing. Then it might just hit too close to the bone.