Jenny Offill – Weather
The German translation of „Weather“ will not be out before next year, so for now in English:
We live in an age with an apocalyptic edge – a sense made only stronger by the rapidly spreading Corona. If you are intending to self-isolate with a stack of books over the next week and want at least one of them to grapple with the sense of doom around us, you could do a lot worse than Jenny Offill’s Weather. Offill has developed a highly distinctive style, first in her wonderful second novel Dept of Speculation, and further re-fined here. She specialises in narratives told unwaveringly from a single perspective and the protagonist here is a librarian / climate scientist assistant, who is also grappling with a brother experiencing various crises, a young son at school and a sense of doubt in an otherwise happy relationship.
There are few books which will take the climate catastrophe seriously while retaining a keen eye for the inherent contradictions of human existence a sense of fun around human catastrophe. That Offill pulls this off should put her at the very top of every prize list this year. It’s a book you’ll read in an afternoon and then want to return to time and time again to unpack its brilliance!
John Owen (one of our best clients and very informed reader)
To buy please click here.
