Temporary (2020, 181 pages, Genre: Speculative fiction) is a unique book about the search for permanence – or the steadiness, as the narrator calls it – in life and in work. A person without an anchor of some sort can find herself alone and unsupported in challenging situations. The narrator, like her mother and grandmother before her, finds herself relying on a temp agency to place her and pay her, while she hopes to find that one job placement where she can stay forever. In the meantime, the protagonist finds it hard to commit to anything.
She has a number of boyfriends, perhaps one for each day of the week or maybe even the month. She refers to them by their descriptive terms: my favorite boyfriend, my tallest boyfriend, my earnest boyfriend. The only people with names also have permanent jobs. Her placements, which become increasingly bizarre, take her farther and farther away from the city where she had an apartment, where the boyfriends took turns spending time with her, where her contact at the agency placed her with the best clients.
Somehow the narrator drops down the ranks of temporary employment, from standing in for the Chairman of the Board of Major Corp to a pirate ship to an assassin’s assistant and even to the dreaded Agency for Fugitive Temps. Everywhere she goes, she tries to do her best, meet expectations, and find the steadiness. At the same time, her calls with the boyfriends only increase her disconnection from her past. Like the narrator, we wonder where she will end up. Will she find the steadiness? Are there some people who can never find it?
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Julia Miller
