Joe Meno, Office Girl

For reasons I can't explain, I haven't read anything by Joe Meno since 2006, when I read and loved his breakthrough novel, Hairstyles of the Damned. Fortunately, Akashic Books was kind enough to send me a review copy of his latest novel, Office Girl, and I really enjoyed getting reacquainted. Office Girl is set in Chicago in 1999 and tells the story of two twenty-somethings, Odile and Jack, both art-school dropouts who are wandering aimlessly through life, working dead-end jobs and churning through hopeless relationships. Each is working on vaguely-defined artistic projects - Odile with some sort of guerrilla street theater, Jack with an audio collage of the city - which, along with one of those dead-end jobs, briefly brings them together. The tone of the book is deceptively light; though the short chapters move past swiftly, there are serious undercurrents that linger beneath, just out of sight, which neither character is strong enough to confront, opting instead to just continue to live with. Office Girl is refreshingly low-key: no grand themes, no calamities, no melodrama. Odile and Jack simply drift together and suddenly separate, like so many real relationships do. Meno gives us a glimpse into their sad and lonely lives, while still ending with a glimmer of hope that their lives will eventually get better. Nicely done.