Avi­gayl Sharp’s thought-pro­vok­ing debut nov­el begins with the nar­ra­tor — a ​“sex­u­al­ly frigid” twen­ty-nine year old who was back liv­ing in her par­ents’ house until recent­ly — arriv­ing in a remote sea­side town to teach Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture at an all-girls school. The Academy’s for­mer Eng­lish teacher was accused of hav­ing an inap­pro­pri­ate rela­tion­ship with a stu­dent and has been put on leave for the school year, thus leav­ing an open posi­tion for the nar­ra­tor to step into. The job offers our unnamed nar­ra­tor an escape from a destruc­tive fam­i­ly unit — it puts dis­tance between her and her emo­tion­al­ly manip­u­la­tive moth­er, her seem­ing­ly unin­ter­est­ed father, and her disin­gen­u­ous sis­ter. And it pro­vides poten­tial for respite from her failed attempt at a PhD, as well as her roman­tic rela­tion­ship that’s on a pause. 

It’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty, she con­vinces her­self, for self-dis­cov­ery, and maybe even rein­ven­tion. Whether she is run­ning from or to some­thing, she doesn’t know yet.

The town is full of inter­est­ing char­ac­ters who we get to know dur­ing the off­sea­son. There’s Bil­ly, who lives a nomadic lifestyle, hangs out in alley­ways while smok­ing, and over­shares about his life. There’s Petar, the Academy’s Direc­tor of Facil­i­ties, who is look­ing for­ward to his wife and son arriv­ing soon from Bul­gar­ia. There’s Cordelia, an apa­thet­ic yet aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly-inclined teenag­er who is believed to be the stu­dent involved with last year’s scan­dal. And there’s Thomas, who used to live in the narrator’s fac­ul­ty apart­ment but has been out of town for some time, and with whom the nar­ra­tor strikes up a dalliance. 

Off­sea­son’snar­ra­tor is acute­ly aware of every thought, action, and sen­sa­tion she expe­ri­ences, yet she lets life hap­pen to her, as if she is a non-par­tic­i­pant in her own sto­ry. She bal­ances self-cen­tered­ness with self-loathing. She’s self-sab­o­tag­ing, and makes a con­scious effort to be. She longs for inti­ma­cy, but spends her time either push­ing peo­ple away or des­per­ate­ly grasp­ing at any con­nec­tion she can find, even if it seems obvi­ous­ly unful­fill­ing. She’s a com­plex, bor­der­line-aggra­vat­ing pro­tag­o­nist that the read­er can­not help but iden­ti­fy with a lit­tle. Sharp deft­ly brings to the page that lost feel­ing that every twen­ty-some­thing expe­ri­ences at some point in a way that’s uncom­fort­able, relat­able, and deeply human.

The narrator’s Jew­ish­ness comes into play pri­mar­i­ly regard­ing her moth­er, a Jew­ish immi­grant from the for­mer Sovi­et Union, who embod­ies the neg­a­tive tropes com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Jew­ish moth­ers; her con­trar­i­an nature, espe­cial­ly dur­ing fam­i­ly gath­er­ings; and her own feel­ings of oth­er­ness and iso­la­tion. Her Jew­ish­ness is just anoth­er thing that sets her apart from every­one else; even if it is not dis­cussed at length, it remains a cru­cial part of her identity. 

Ques­tions of sex­u­al­i­ty and wom­an­hood are ever present with­in the nar­ra­tive. The nar­ra­tor seems pre­oc­cu­pied with her own sex­u­al expe­ri­ences — she repeat­ed­ly ref­er­ences ​“what hap­pened to [her] when [she] was a sev­en­teen-year-old vir­gin in Ben­jamin Leichter’s par­ents’ bed­room and the oth­er relat­ed thing that hap­pened to [her] sev­er­al years lat­er.” She won­ders if every man she inter­acts with wants to sleep with her. She wor­ries, but also under­stands, Cordelia’s fix­a­tion with her for­mer teacher. She miss­es the per­son she ​“once lived with and loved,” and calls him to show him the ocean. The book nav­i­gates the com­plex­i­ties of what it means to be a young woman in today’s world — the expec­ta­tion to be sex­u­al­ly lib­er­at­ed but still appeal­ing, and the cycles we are trapped in as we get older.

Off­sea­son exam­ines themes of wom­an­hood, love and sex, edu­ca­tion, and fam­i­ly, blur­ring the line between past and present as we watch the nar­ra­tor nav­i­gate peri­ods of growth and stag­na­tion, echo­ing the town itself and the cycli­cal nature of seasons.