Weather

(Hardback)

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Description

'What are you afraid of, he asks me and the answer of course is dentistry, humiliation, scarcity, then he says what are your most useful skills People think I'm funny'

Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization.

As she dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you've seen the flames beyond its walls. When her brother becomes a father and Sylvia a recluse, Lizzie is forced to acknowledge the limits of what she can do. But if she can't save others, then what, or who, might save her

And all the while the voices of the city keep floating in--funny, disturbing, and increasingly mad.

Reviews

This is so good. We are not ready nor worthy -- Ocean Vuong
'As soon as I finished [Dept. of Speculation], I turned it over and started again. Stunning' -- Maggie OFarrell
The end times don't deserve such exquisite literary investigation. I folded down every page until I realised there was no point, I would fold them all, I would read the book again the second I was finished. A gorgeous, funny, deadly serious and warmly revelatory mesh of perfect paragraphs -- Max Porter
Jenny Offill writes beautiful sentences; she is also a deft curator of silences. It's this counterpoint of eloquence and felt absence that enables her to register the emotional and political weather of our present -- Ben Lerner
No one writes about the intersection of love and existential despair like Jenny Offill -- Jia Tolentino
Jenny Offill conjures entire worlds with her steady, near-pointillist technique. One feels a whole heaving, breathing universe behind her every line. Dread, the sensation of sinking, lostness, and being cast away from any sense of safety infiltrates every interaction and private moment in this book, like the ashes from the burning world she describes -- Sheila Heti
Weather is a beautiful book, both subtle and powerful. In writing, that's a superhuman feat. And now is exactly when we need the superhumans. Make haste. Read it -- Lydia Millet
Novelists don't need to dream the end of the world anymore - they need to wake up to it. Jenny Offill is one of today's few essential voices, because she writes about essential things, in sentences so clipped and glittering it's as if they are all cut from one diamond -- Jonathan Dee, author of * The Privileges *
With exceptional originality, intensity and sweetness [...] Dept. of Speculation is a shattered novel that stabs and sparkles at the same time. . . give in and read it * Guardian *
There is no doubt that Jenny Offill is the writer for this particular historical moment. WEATHER is a tour de force of her considerable and startling gifts: the compressed and gorgeous sentences, the astounding comic timing, the profound and wise surprises. The miracle of this novel is how it looks at our contradictions and conditions with such bracing honesty and yet gives us a tender hopefulness toward these fraught humans. Offill makes us feel implicated but also loved -- Dana Spiotta
A fragmented wander through an anxious, funny mind, with odd connections arriving in overheard anecdotes. It's great * Observer *
Moving, heartbreaking and frequently funny -- Five great novels of the decade * New European *
Elegant, entertaining... zesty... told in short, shimmery snippets...delightfully silly; jam-packed with wise and wistful sentences that you will want to underline and quote to all your friends * Psychologies *
[Offill is] such a fine, funny writer, her observations shot through with luminous intelligence and emotional insight. Her last novel, Dept. of Speculation is also superb -- Alex Preston * Observer *
Impressive * Spectator *
A thoughtful often funny book about modern life * Socialist Worker *
Weather takes the form of short paragraphs, each beautifully shaped and self-contained... Courageous, quirky and charming * TLS *
An original and timely piece of work... shimmers with beautiful writing, wild wit and usually an undercurrent of introspective melancholy... ingenious * New European *
Guaranteed to make you feel less alone... Striking... It is brilliant in the truest sense of the word, capturing the anxieties of modern life - climate, politics, privilege, sex, tech - with the lightest of touches. In the future, when people want to know what living in 2020 was like, they should just read Weather' * Stylist *
Brilliant -- Melissa Harrison * Guardian *
A brilliantly compressed novel that takes the temperature of our times -- 'The 100 best summer reads 2020 * Sunday Times *
A darkly witty distress call... channels our anxieties about climate collapse and political meltdown into the wisecracks of an everywoman narrator... it walks the line between hilarity and deadly seriousness -- 50 brilliant books to transport you this summer * Guardian *
Admirable -- Best books of the year so far * i paper *
Funny, interesting and challenging. It makes you laugh out loud, while also making you slightly despair -- Martha Lane Fox * Good Housekeeping *
Brilliant. Just so enjoyable and made me really want to sit next to Jenny Offill (or maybe her main character) at a dinner party...I really enjoyed it * i paper *
I had been waiting for years for Jenny Offill's next novel and I wasn't disappointed -- Avni Doshi * Observer *
Assembles shards of anecdote and aphorism into a glittering mosaic that faces up to Trump's America and climate collapse with wit, heart and moments of sheer terror * Guardian *
Compulsively alarming * Telegraph *
Offbeat and brilliant -- Books of the Year * Stylist *

Author Bio

Jenny Offill's novel Dept. of Speculation was shortlisted for the Folio Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, and was chosen as a book of the year over 20 times, including by the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, FT, Daily Mail, Stylist, Observer and Vogue. She is also the author of the novel Last Things, and four books for children. She lives upstate New York with her family.