“Absorbing and highly readable...Offill has successfully met the challenge she seems to have given herself: write only what needs to be written, and nothing more. No excess, no flab. And do it in a series of bulletins, fortune-cookie commentary, mordant observations, lyrical phrasing. And through these often disparate and disconnected means, tell the story of the fragile nature of anyone’s domestic life.... Intriguing, beautifully written, sly, and often profound.” (Meg Wolitzer, NPR)

“Audacious.... Hilarious...Dept. of Speculation reveals a raw marital reality that continues to be expunged from the pervasive narrative of marriage.... Offill moves quickly and poetically over deeply introspective questions about long-term partnerships, parenthood, and aging.... From deep within the interiors of a fictional marriage, Offill has crafted an account of matrimony and motherhood that breaks free of the all-too-limiting traditional stories of wives and mothers. There is a complexity to the central partnership; Offill folds cynicism into genuine moments of love. It may be difficult to truly know what happens between two people, but Offill gets alarmingly close.” (The Atlantic)

“Breathtaking.... Reminiscent of Renata Adler’s Speedboat but with a less bitter edge...Dept. of Speculation charts the course of a marriage through curious, often shimmering fragments of prose.... Moves quickly, but it is also joyously demanding because you will want to keep trying to understand the why of each fragment and how it fits with the others.... Offill is a smart writer with a canny sense of pacing.... She deftly moves the novel forward with elegant shifts of point of view.” (The New York Times Book Review)