The Life of the Mind: A Novel

About this book

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time NPR The Atlantic Electric Lit Thrillist LitHub Kirkus Reviews A witty intelligent novel of an American woman on the edge by a brilliant new voice in fictionthe glorious love child of Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney (Publishers Weekly starred review) A jewel of a debut . . . abundantly satisfying.Jia Tolentino The New Yorker As an adjunct professor of English in New York City with little hope of finding a permanent position Dorothy feels like a janitor in the temple who continued to sweep because she had nowhere else to be but who had lost her belief in the essential sanctity of the enterprise. No one but her boyfriend knows that shes just had a miscarriagenot her mother her best friend or her therapists (Dorothy has two of them). She wasnt even sure she wanted to be a mother. So why does Dorothy feel like a failure? The Life of the Mind is a book about endingsof youth of ambition of possibility but also of the meaning that an inquiring mind can find in the mess of daily experience. Mordant and remorselessly wise this jewel of a debut cuts incisively into life as we live it and how we think of it.