Last things - Jenny Offill

Eight-year-old Grace Davitt’s mother Anna, an ornithologist, once saw a monster in the lake near their home in Vermont. She believes it may be a dinosaur that has somehow escaped extinction, and each morning she photographs the dark water, hoping it will reappear. To Grace, the monster is more evidence that the world is full of things most people will never see: from her boy-genius babysitter, she has learned about invisible black holes from which no one can escape. From her mother, she has heard about the hyena men of Africa who devour their wives in their sleep. From The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained, she has learned about children raised by wolves and men who suddenly burst into flames. It is only Jonathan, Grace’s father, a dedicated rationalist, who attempts to convince her that the world is, in fact, well-ordered and reasonable — for him, the sole truth is science.

Increasingly, though, Jonathan finds himself shut out by Anna as she draws Grace deeper and deeper into a strange world of myth and obsession. Grace sorts out her conflicting loyalties on a journey that takes her to a boozy and flooded New Orleans, a Dionysian festival in the Nevada desert, a lighthouse-shaped hotel in California, and, finally, back to Vermont.

Touching on extinction, madness, the breakdown of family and the way science can encourage contradictory readings of the world, Last Things is a spare, bewitching debut that marks the arrival of a bright new talent.