About a third of the way through this sprawling, defiantly plotless novel of a young woman poet’s inner life, the protagonist, having left the office trailer in which she works, surprises her co-worker by wandering back in. “Why did I come back in here?” Lucy Jinx asks. Her co-worker, Ariel, replies “Why did you come back in here?” D’Stair characterizes the conversation’s next steps thusly: “’I think I need to get more sleep’ Lucy decides to go with saying and Ariel nods, considers this a real gem of a thing to say, and offers to make Lucy the official Office Sage.” What readers don’t know: Did Lucy forget? Does she have an ulterior motive? And so it goes in Lucy Jinx, a novel of disruptions and disorientation, presenting hundreds of crisp, funny encounters from the mind of a woman who doesn’t quite know—or won’t quite admit—what she’s up to.

Less a stream-of-conscious story than one cataloging, with witty detail, slightly off-kilter everyday incidents, Lucy Jinx charts its hero’s navigation of a quietly bumptious time, as Lucy toils at a magazine published by a grocery-store chain, babysits for the mother who is her landlord, entertains an offer to move in with a woman she has a crush on, and refuses to open a letter that seems important. She seems to yearn for several of the women in her life, but the narrative voice, tied tightly to Lucy’s perspective, tends toward the coy, even about Lucy’s embarrassed predilection for erotic novels like Claudette, The Bashful Girl.

In its descriptive precision, formal play, satiric sharpness, and tragicomic handling of social anxiety and creative processes, the novel, the first of a trilogy, suggests the incisive pleasures of the heyday of Vintage Contemporaries, though the epic length for such a low-key story limits its audience. Still, the relentless succession of compact scenes offers a wealth of gems, powered by sparkling observational comedy, striking language, and Lucy’s own restless—and relatable—editing and rewriting of her own thoughts.

Takeaway: Playful, inventive, and funny epic of a poet’s antsy everyday life.

Comparable Titles: Susan Daitch’s The Colorist, Nicholson Baker.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-