- ‘Old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky’: Expressions like this perfectly capture the concisely expressed brilliance of this wonderful novel.
- Offill registers the strangeness of people. They are lost. Their sense of emptiness, hopelessness, anxiety and existential dread is captured perfectly.
- The deadpan humour is delicious. ‘All day, Ben lies on the couch, reading a giant history of war. But he got it at a used-book store so it only goes up to World War 1.’
- The narrator, Lizzie, is a charming character. She's witty, observant, caring and, importantly, sane. Her down-to-earthness and intelligence reminded me of Lucy Ellmann in Ducks, Newburyport. But where Lucy overtalks and overwrites, Lizzie understates and is quietly reflective. She respects silences and peace.
- Global warming, the fear and reality, is depressing for everyone
- 'For dessert, Catherine serves fruit with unsweetened whip cream. My son rips his napkin into smaller and smaller pieces. "What is there to do here?" he whispers. Henry overhears and leans in to speak softly in his ear. Eli smiles.
"What did you tell him?" I ask my brother later. "I told him nothing", he says.'
- The small snippets, paragraphs and jottings of Lizzie’s thoughts and observations begin to build in a powerful way.
- People aren’t too bright. They elected Trump (although Lizzie refuses to utter the name ‘Trump’). '"In chaotic times, people long for a strongman", she said. But I didn’t believe her. Hardly anyone did.’
- ‘Insomnia is a badge of honour. Proof that you’re paying attention.’
- ‘Someone says hello to me and I see it’s the hot guy from the bus. He is wearing running clothes, which lowers my opinion of him.’
- ‘Of course, the world continues to end’, Sylvia says, then gets off the phone to water her garden'.
- ‘What is the core delusion?’ Margot asks the class, but nobody knows the right answer, and she doesn’t bother to tell us'.
- ‘The core delusion is that I am here and you are there.’
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