Dreams of perfect jobs, not men
Look out Bridget Jones — Claire Flannery, the flighty late-20-something protagonist of Not Working by newcomer Lisa Owens, is here. Not to find her dream man, but her dream job. Although Claire and longtime live-in boyfriend, Luke, haven’t joined “the endless parade of the engagement brigade,” she seems set in the life-partner department. It’s what to do about work that keeps her up nights.
Unlike the rest of her friends who have seemingly found fulfilling careers, Claire suddenly quits her marketing job when she’s seized by “a powerful impulse to start swallowing things on (her) desk.”
But resigning from work to find her true purpose proves harder than Claire imagined. Without a clear plan of action, compounded by an endless array of career options, Claire is left feeling paralyzed. In a series of alternately quirky, insightful, blisteringly funny and downright embarrassing first-person vignettes, Claire observes both the mundanity and absurdity of life as she struggles to understand why she doesn’t conform to the norm.
Why, for instance, was she never able to get more excited about her job? Why can’t she seem to accomplish the simplest errands Luke asks of her while he’s at work? Why do her friends make more money than she ever did? And why is it, the longer she spends trying to find her true vocation, the more her life unravels?
As awkward, stubborn and gaffeprone as she can be, I couldn’t help but feel tenderness for Claire, a reminder of my younger, floundering self. It’s this authenticity of Claire’s struggles, her humour and vulnerability and her fresh, honest voice that makes her so real, so endearing. What Bridget Jones’s Diary was to single 30-something women in the ’90s, Not Working is a zeitgeist work for the millennial generation.