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Jenny Offill’s first novel, Last things, was published in 1999. It took a decade and a half for his next appearance – Offill suffers from depression and could not write for much of that time. The wait was worth it: his second novel, Department of Speculation, has been widely praised for its innovative use of short, impressionistic paragraphs and a bright first-person voice. Weather, her third novel, was published in February 2020 and shortlisted for the female fiction award. It’s about the climate crisis, Trump, and the state of the United States. Offill lives in upstate New York with her husband and daughter and teaches at Bard College. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.
Weather continues the fragmentary style of your previous novel. How much do you think of the effect this has on the reader’s experience of the book?
I think about it a lot. I really want the act of writing to be collaborative with the reader. I often have the feeling, when I read a lot of contemporary novels, that so much is filled in and spelled out, so much backstory is involved. For me, a lot of the joy of reading a good book is the conversation you have in your head with the author. I feel like the white space in my writing is for the reader to bring their own thoughts and ideas to the book. I know what would happen in between if I had to write it down, it’s no mystery to me. I’m not trying to remember exactly, but rather to distill. Ask me how much is essential and how much is the part you go through to get to the interesting parts.
Are you more optimistic now that Trump is about to come out?
I have the impression that enormous damage has been done in four years. Obviously, not so much for people like me, who are in a pretty privileged position, but for all these people who were in the crosshairs of the administration – and that was huge groups of Americans. I teach at university and I see through my students the incredible effect it has had on them, and how anxious and fearful they are. We didn’t even know if we could stay if he was re-elected. It was so dark. So I feel more optimistic now, although it’s not that exciting to have a white president in the late 1970s. He’s no fool, though, and he cares that 200,000 people have died in the United States [from Covid-19].
When it comes to the climate crisis in particular, it feels like the book is angry, but also full of hope …
I came across this idea which I didn’t end up putting into the novel but which I found really interesting. He is a Romanian author of comparative religion called Mircea Eliade: he said that he had studied the myths of creation and destruction all over the world and that he had never found one on a slow apocalypse. Everything tends to ignite in an instant. I wanted to see what it was like to live in a pre-apocalyptic moment. You have real existential threats that will impact you, your children, your neighbors, but you also have everyday life – you don’t just pick up cans and dodge cannibals like in most novels. apocalyptic. You should always take your kids to school, you should always avoid that neighbor you cannot stand, there are still money worries.
How did you get through the lockdown?
Fairly locked. It was not that long ago that my parents left North Carolina. Because they are older and they have health issues, so that we can convince them to stay indoors, we have tried to do so many errands and so on for them. In the summer we went out a bit more, but I still haven’t been to my friends. We sort of lived outside, but in the fall I got a new job and had to teach in person. We were all masked and a few nervous nellies insisted on teaching in tents. The pandemic has gone through all of these different stages and you are constantly moving between boredom and terror. We recently converted our dining table to a ping pong table and felt it was the last stop of winter. I know a few writers – mostly single – who’ve done a lot of work because nobody bothers them. I’m not one of them. For me, it was more about taking care of people. I don’t miss the world as much as I maybe should.
What books are on your nightstand?
Let me watch. I have a book called Where Europe begins by Yoko Tawada. I have a book called How to do nothing by Jenny Odell, whose name strangely resembles mine. I also figured out in my head that I could try writing short stories so I have a collection called The art of history.
Which living writers do you admire the most?
I love Rachel Cusk, Claudia Rankine. I just read a book that I found interesting by a young writer, Raven Leilani. They marketed his book so poorly – it’s much more interesting than they made it sound. I found his prose to be wonderful. I was judging a price for the first books and this one really jumped.
How do you store your books on your shelves?
Completely at random. They just have to adapt. I have different sizes of shelves. There is no order and I often spend a ridiculous amount of time, especially when teaching, looking for a book I know I have. My daughter and her friend one weekend arranged one of my shelves by color. I was slightly appalled. I associate this with the homes of people where they don’t read. It didn’t take me long to ruin it.
• Weather by Jenny Offill is published in paperback by Granta on January 28 (£ 8.99). To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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