As they confront an array of common catastrophesa colicky baby, a faltering marriage, stalled ambitionsthe wife analyzes her predicament, invoking everything from Keats and Kafka to the thought experiments of the Stoics to the lessons of doomed Russian cosmonauts. of Speculation, their code name for all the uncertainty that inheres in life and in the strangely fluid confines of a long relationship. Jenny Offills heroine, referred to in these pages as simply the wife, once exchanged love letters with her husband postmarked Dept. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage.

What can be possibly said of the plight of young, hip Brookynites that hasn’t already been said before? Yet Offill’s slim book manages to find a fresh take, chronicling the life of a young couple through love, marriage, children, betrayal and back again, by letting what goes unsaid speak the loudest.ĭept. but a mature exploration of grown-up issues and self-discovery.The New York Times Book Review Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become. Woodsons eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a childs soul as she searches for her place in the world. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. National Book Award Winner Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Maybe most telling, when I finished reading it, my 10-year-old picked it up, and devoured it.Īlso recommended by: Christopher Paul Curtis

Woodson’s memoir in verse spans some revolutionary history-the Civil Rights movement, witnessed from Greenville, South Carolina-but equally compelling is the revolution within, when Woodson discovers the power of words and story.

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