***A TIME MAGAZINE, LITHUB, WHITE REVIEW BEST BOOK OF 2021***
"200 pages of serious entertainment." ?The Times
The Life of the Mind opens with Dorothy sitting on a library toilet, checking her phone and examining the -thick, curdled knots of string- coming out of her body. No one but her boyfriend knows that she-s had a miscarriage, not even her therapists-Dorothy has two of them.
An adjunct professor of English in New York City with no hope of finding a permanent position, Dorothy-s stuck, unable to envision the future or cut ties with the past. -What did you call it,- she asks herself, -when a life stopped developing, but it didn-t end?-
Christine Smallwood-s debut is a campus novel like no other. Piercingly intelligent and darkly hilarious, it moves from a classroom to an underwater puppet show, from a conference in Las Vegas to a karaoke party. It is a discomforting glimpse into the head of a brilliant
