The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Interior Designs by Sherril Jaffe
Laurie Champion

Sherril Jaffe. Interior Designs. Black Sparrow Press, 1996. 240 pp. $25.00; paper: $14.00.

Literally and symbolically, Interior Designs is about interior and exterior designs. Its form parallels its content: it is divided into four major sections, each with approximately twenty chapters of between one and four pages. Instead of relying on plot, Jaffe writes short passages to illustrate various aspects of design, primarily the architecture of houses. In these passages the narrator describes all the houses she has lived in, none of which she has occupied for more than three years. In the section entitled “The First House,” the narrator and her husband, a rabbi, look for a new house. Instead of finding the right house, the right house seems to find them (throughout the novel structural components such as doors and windows are personified). The new house also has light shining from more than one direction, an entry for proper greetings and farewells, and a sense of solidity, all of which make the narrator feel infinite. Upon moving to the house, the narrator considers philosophical questions concerning fate, luck, guilt, and desire. These questions are exemplary of the novel’s themes—in every chapter of the novel, some aspect of exterior design is portrayed literally to illustrate metaphorically human emotions or philosophical issues. Sometimes the metaphors are a bit too obvious, and occasionally the narrator intrudes to explain them lest they slip past readers. For example, when looking at a house she decides against, she says all except one structural flaw is amendable. The minor flaws in the house are like “little and medium-sized mistakes we all make in life—they were not irrevocable.” For the most part, however, Jaffe has a wonderfully poetic style; remarkably enough, despite the lack of plot, the novel moves forward at a quick pace. The idea that you can’t go home again recurs throughout the novel, but the implication is interestingly reversed, suggesting that to return to an earlier phase in one’s life would be to backslide. Textual and symbolic circular patterns develop in the novel that integrate the chapters with the text as a whole and that unite individuals with others and in a spiritual sense with the universe. Entertaining, witty, and full of philosophical insights, Interior Designs explores ways to find and maintain personal and spiritual peace. [Laurie Champion]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Interior Designs by Sherril Jaffe Laurie Champion Sherril Jaffe. Interior Designs. Black Sparrow Press, 1996. 240 pp. $25.00; paper: $14.00. Literally and symbolically, Interior Designs is about interior and exterior designs. Its form parallels its content: it is divided into four major sections, each with approximately twenty chapters of between one and four pages. Instead of relying on plot, Jaffe writes short passages to illustrate various aspects of design, primarily the architecture of houses. In these passages the narrator describes all the houses she has lived in, none of which she has occupied for more than three years. In the section entitled “The First House,” the narrator and her husband, a rabbi, look for a new house. Instead of finding the right house, the right house seems to find them (throughout the novel structural components such as doors and windows are personified). The new house also has light shining from more than one direction, an entry for proper greetings and farewells, and a sense of solidity, all of which make the narrator feel infinite. Upon moving to the house, the narrator considers philosophical questions concerning fate, luck, guilt, and desire. These questions are exemplary of the novel’s themes—in every chapter of the novel, some aspect of exterior design is portrayed literally to illustrate metaphorically human emotions or philosophical issues. Sometimes the metaphors are a bit too obvious, and occasionally the narrator intrudes to explain them lest they slip past readers. For example, when looking at a house she decides against, she says all except one structural flaw is amendable. The minor flaws in the house are like “little and medium-sized mistakes we all make in life—they were not irrevocable.” For the most part, however, Jaffe has a wonderfully poetic style; remarkably enough, despite the lack of plot, the novel moves forward at a quick pace. The idea that you can’t go home again recurs throughout the novel, but the implication is interestingly reversed, suggesting that to return to an earlier phase in one’s life would be to backslide. Textual and symbolic circular patterns develop in the novel that integrate the chapters with the text as a whole and that unite individuals with others and in a spiritual sense with the universe. Entertaining, witty, and full of philosophical insights, Interior Designs explores ways to find and maintain personal and spiritual peace. [Laurie Champion]

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