Weather by Jenny Offill

On a companion website for this book, there’s a quote from Thomas Merton’s journals that includes the phrase “I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place,” which I like a lot (I should really read more by Merton one of these days) and which feels very relevant to this book. Weather is partly about the narrator, Lizzie’s, preoccupation with and dread about climate change. But it’s also about a general mood of anxiety, related to a number of things, from politics (the book is set around the 2016 US presidential election) to family worries (Lizzie’s brother is a recovering addict; she’s also worried about her mom) to everyday life stuff (dread about going to the dentist, dread about a dermatologist’s appointment).

The style of the prose works for me: the book is made of little snippets, mostly Lizzie’s first-person narrative but also other things (stuff Lizzie’s reading, or pieces from her second job—she works in a university library but also starts helping her former grad school prof/advisor, Sylvia, answer emails about the climate-related podcast Sylvia hosts, and we see pieces of the questions/answers related to that work) and I think the style lets Offill change topic or tone quickly, adding bits of humor or depth (plus it’s just an appealing style to me, in general). I do think there are maybe a few too many strands—the portions of the plot tied to Sylvia felt a little too loosely-connected, and I feel like Sylvia ends up being a plot device to explain Lizzie’s increasing fascination with/focus on doomsday prepping. But overall I found this a quick and satisfying read.


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