Jenny Offill's command of the written word is masterful. This novel was beautiful and heart-wrenching. Although it didn't fully live up to the expectations of JO's "Department of Speculation," I was absolutely riveted from the first page to the last.

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It always curious when you read a fantastic book by a particular author, and then go back and read an older book of theirs. Does it hold up? Is it as good? The short answer is, no, Jenny Offill’s Last Things isn’t as stellar and unique a read as her Dept. of Speculation, but it’s like an exciting roadmap that leads to it. Last Things holds its own, as a very good book, and it shows a writer developing her craft. The book was originally published in 1999, and then reissued in 2015. The two books are very different from each other, but I could see the wheels turning as she wrote in short chapters and broke things up in her writing. In Speculation she took that brevity to a glorious extreme, with a great many separate and seemingly unrelated sections to a page. It was a learning process. As you continued reading, you could see patterns and find the plotline running through it. Many times, small bits feel too disjointed, and a reader’s interest might wander, but Offill kept it fascinating with an astonishing level of intriguing information, some very funny writing, and it was both clever and entertaining.
Oh, this review is supposed to be about her first book. The book is about an eight-year-old girl, Grace Davitt, and her ornithologist mother and chemistry teacher dad who live beside Lake Champlain in Vermont. Her mother, Anna, has an inventive mind, speaks five languages, and her thoughts lean towards the mystical and the monsters in the lake. Eventually her thoughts, feelings, and body, move away from her logical and rational husband. As the family comes apart, Grace’s loyalties are tested, and the family members travel the country.
The writing seems right for someone Grace’s age, without talking down or being condescending. There’s a simplicity to the style, and the shorten chapters don’t reach for too much complexity all at once. Grace had behavioral problems in the public schools, so she’s being homeschooled, with a rich and conflicting mixture of science and magic. As she witnesses her mother’s downward spiral into madness, Grace is torn between what she sees with her own eyes, and this key authority figure in her life.
There is a lot going on in this story, but the crisp and original writing is never clumsy. It does guide you or tip you off to where that story is going. The young girl is starting to see some of life’s exciting potential, while at the same time watching her mother’s decline. It’s fascinating to watch someone coming-of-age around this madwoman.
Offill latest novel, Weather, is just out and is creating a lot of reviewer buzz. I’m eager to see how and where this clever writer goes next. ( )

Roman over een bijzondere familie. Het verhaal is geschreven vanuit het perspectief van een meisje. Ze ziet haar moeder "ontsporen", het lijkt of de moeder manisch-depressief is, en het meisje leeft daarbij in een fantasiewereld. Ook het huwelijk van vader en moeder mislukt. ( )

This is the author's debut, a gentle and sweet voiced story of a very close family and the devastation wreaked when the mom goes off the rails. Grace is a very precocious eight when her adventures with her mother Anna take a mysterious turn. Grace's implicit trust in her parents is touching, even when her mother spirits her away to the edge of poverty in New Orleans and to Burning Man. Perhaps Grace is too grown up to be real, but the writing is splendid and the story has a rhythmic flow. Her second novel, Department of Speculation, has a similar theme but is even better. ( )

I didn't understand the book; I need things to be spelled out more. I finished it because I need to finish books that I start, and I was hoping it would get interesting. Although bits like the wonderful second quote below also made me want to continue.

There is a monstrous cousin who locks the young narrator in a dog house; she later does the same thing to a young neighbor.

Some quotes:
"... They're very convincing, these men, but their smiles give them away. There's not a man alive that smiles when he's wrong." [p. 16]

"Are you aware," she said, "that at the end of his life Jean-Paul Sartre renounced existentialism and turned to pie?" [p. 63] ( )