Elkin’s is such a refreshing writer. Her writing on desire and feelings are done so complexly. My own interpretation of desire now feels in question and rearranged.

I throughly enjoyed the narrators walks through the city and the internal conversations they experienced when within their home space. I will miss being in the chaotic and flawed headspace’s of these characters.

Scaffolding is one of those books that defies simple description. It is less about what happens and more about what the characters think about what is happening. Anna’s narrative voice as a psychoanalyst and a devotee of those that came before make everything she does feel like intangible fodder for analysis.

In the background of this book is a deep grief and violence: miscarriage, femicide, generational memories of the Holocaust. Much of the plot revolves around characters' confrontations (or failures to confront) the ways in which they are haunted. Elkin weaves so many themes throughout the novel, yet none of them feel forced or contradictory. When I think too hard about everything packed in the 400 pages of Scaffolding, I get goosebumps from the brilliance of it. I think Elkin’s background as a studier of art translates to her debut novel being painted in an ambitious yet cohesive palette.

My only qualm with the book (which knocks it from 5 stars down to 4.25) is that the middle section of the book with Florence and Henry felt disconnected from Anna’s narrative. I kept waiting for it to come back with renewed significance, but it never quite felt like it meshed with the rest of the book.

Overall, this book is a daring and meditative look at what it means to participate in a marriage and the ways that desire can’t be contained. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys thoughtful prose or might want to justify cheating on their husband.

There's a lot going on in this novel set mostly in the Belleville neighborhood of Paris. The primary narrator, in the first and third sections, is Anna, a Franco-American psychoanalyst who has recently suffered a miscarriage. Her husband, David, a lawyer, has taken a job in London, at Anna's insistence, and she is alone, as she wants it, to deal or not deal with what has happened. It's summer, she is on medical leave, is seeing none of her patients, and meets Clementine, a young neighbor who has recently moved into a nearby building with her boyfriend Jonathan, the name of Anna's most serious ex-boyfriend, who had a profound affect on her, as did his father, a famous psychoanalyst whose books led her into her profession. The first third of the novel takes place during the very hot summer - climate change - and the guerrilla posters going up all over Paris highlighting the domestic violence murders of French women by their husbands or partners - and ambles as the two women, Clementine in her early twenties, and Anna in her thirties, spend time together - the nature of their conversations, intimate sort of, to a degree, but focused mostly on intellectual thought, trading theories, it's smart talk, also a little hard to believe but I didn't care. Anna, who is supposed to be using this time to oversee the renovation of the apartment she and David have bought, instead takes her daily runs, and spends time with Clementine. Then the action winds back about 50 years, to Florence and Henry, the married couple who once lived in Anna's apartment, married in the midst of the student uprisings and the sexual revolution in Paris, and Florence takes to attending the seminars given by Lacan. The novel's final part carries that sexual revolution experienced mostly by Florence to Anna in the same apartment with the tiles and wallpaper that Florence had chosen. It's a brainy novel - winding in much psychoanalytic theory, especially that of Lacan, assumptions made in psychoanalysis, monogamy, gender, patriarchy, interpretations of art, and more, how we become who we are, the events and people and lack or surfeit that make us, the memories that carry forward even if we aren't aware of those memories, even if they aren't our memories. In many ways, it's an adultery novel - with various views and experiences of love and autonomy and adultery - as experienced by Florence, Anna, Clementine, strung through, as well, with the undercurrent of the complicity of France and its people in the Holocaust - a thread that is interesting but also felt odd to me. It is also an extreme self-absorption novel - despite or perhaps because of all that's going on in the world, the characters here are engaged in themselves, even when they come together, they are still inward-focused. Observing is key here, and although the author is most interested in the retrospective testimony and observations of her characters rather than scene-making, it has twists and turns, as the characters, who ostensibly want to be exactly who they are - whenever they figure that out - hide or ignore much, both with themselves and from others. The last third of the book also self-consciously winds in queerness - Clementine, we learn early, has sex with both men and women, and probably leans more towards women, and Anna, struggling to figure herself out, and to figure out what she wants for herself, steps into relationships that further muddy the waters. I found it compelling.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for the ARC.

lauren elkin has such a wonderful and straightforward way of writing. some might say that this writing style is confusing and i agree, but with the way elkin has wrote each passage will truly make you invested in the story as it progress. this book is about a woman who is a psychoanalyst. and so with this, we follow her thoughts about the things happening around her and how she tends to basically psycho-analyze everything and anything. i find this book very mysterious in most parts and it almost feels like the main character is altogether losing parts of herself along the way of analyzing each and every move of this certain person she's close with. overall a nice read and i would recommend this if you are a fan of ottessa moshfegh. thank you so much to NetGalley and Elkin for this amazing read!

I finished this a couple of hours ago, and I still feel like I don't have the right words to describe my experience and what I think of this book.

Let me just express it in this way: Scaffolding, for me, is a biblically accurate angel that represents my current woes and dilemma on desire, specifically that of the flesh. What it means to love. What it means to be with someone, romantically or not. What it means to lay with someone. What it means to have an identity tied to being one's Other. All of these things I have tried to grasp.

And in one way or another, I have succeeded because of Lauren Elkin's words.

Another thing I really liked about this book is the fact that it depicts location - homes to be exact - as a melting pot of experiences, similar or not. It really situates the reader in the realities belonging to the characters held against the backdrop of their time and the politics brewing in it. I liked the way it was a stream of consciousness from three characters who, from the get-go, felt like real people. While I did have difficulty with some discussions about Lacan and psychoanalyses, it was still easy to follow through with the plot, to dive back into the existence painted in Belleville.

This was a delightful surprise to my relatively mundane reading life. I highlighted a bunch of lines, a sign that I had enjoyed my time with a book. The little tidbits of descriptions and hints that give space for the reader to think about the relations among them were also delicious - I just keep eating them up. I felt like I was reading a literary version of a tabloid for in/fidelity. Maybe that explains why I now recommend it to anyone - for someone living in a fairly conservative country, this made me reckon with the possibilities of desire and love. This made me reflect on my understandings and definitions still highly dependent on my religion.

Elkin, I was not familiar with your game. Now, I will be.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review. Scaffolding is a novel split into three sections (two following main character, Anna, in 2019 and one following Florence and Henry in 1972), with the connecting thread between them being the apartment in Paris that is inhabited by both sets of characters during their respective sections/times. This book most certainly falls into the category of “no plot, all vibes” so, keep this in mind when deciding whether to pick it up!

While this type of book usually doesn’t work for me, I did enjoy this one! I very much enjoyed the author’s writing style and found that she was really able to pack in a punch in her succinct, eloquent sentences. Additionally, I think the generally short length of most chapters within the section helped keep me engaged. With this being said, many of the chapters do sort of jump around different trains of thought, which contributes to the stream of consciousness style that this book is operating under. However, the different topics that were explored in this novel, including feminism, women’s sexuality, and especially Anna’s self awareness of her own mental state/desires/etc. were very compelling. I did enjoy Anna’s sections more than Florence and Henry’s and would have honestly preferred to just focus on her.

There is a lot to take in with this book and several sections certainly merit a reread to fully appreciate and take in. I look forward to hearing what others think of this one once it’s out! I would recommend this to lit fic lovers and fans of the “no plot, all vibes” type of stories!

Just a marvel! Sexy and sophisticated, so grounded in the details of life of a city neighborhood and of Paris in the current age. I loved the voice of Anna, the central figure in the book, but I also enjoyed the deepening of urban history and themes of feminism and self-knowledge within a couple that the alternating voices of part two provided.

I really struggled to get into this book and ultimately did not end up finishing it. I found the connection between characters difficult to get into and there was something about the story that felt at arms distance. I wish I had better feedback but ultimately I was drawn to the cover and not as captivated by the actual story.

One of my favourite books I’ve read this year! Beautiful setting, characters and story and extremely gorgeous writing, will be rereading this one again soon

There are so many beautiful and insightful sentences in this book—but to me it felt like part way through, it got concerned that those thoughts weren’t enough and tried to do more than was needed. Personally I would have liked it better without the historical section in the middle.

I highlighted the hell out of the rest of it. A useful text if ur considering having an affair.

I really enjoyed this! Made me think and kept me engaged. I wasn’t sure how necessary the middle part was with the perspective shift, I don’t feel that added much and seemed a bit disruptive to the flow.

This wasn’t a struggle to read, but it was a patchy experience, at times appealing and evocative, with interesting layers, at others tedious and excessively theoretical.
Several couples, complicatedly connected. A lot of psychoanalytic material, sometimes being taught, at others lived and analyzed. This was always going to make for a lumpy narrative, and so it proves, with the switches of point-of-view and the lurches in relationships. Suffice to say Elkins keeps a straight face throughout and delivers some charming stuff alongside the other, more brainiac and self conscious bits. I don’t think I’m recommending it. But she herself is interesting.

An excellent novel that reminded me of the 1996 French film L'Appartement. An incredible amount of upheaval, desire and intrigue takes place in Anna's life, and at the end, her life goes back to normal. Anna is a psychoanalyst struggling to come to terms with the trauma of a miscarriage. It forces her to examine her marriage and whether she is satisfied in it, and whether monogamy is a valid choice. It also highlights the secrets people choose to keep instead of talking to their partners, and asks: how well do you really know anyone? It's very playful, and demonstrates a real love and knowledge of Paris.

This is a bold and mesmering novel about love, desire, identity and relationships.I enjoyed reading Lauren Elkin's ‘Art Monsters’ last year and was naturally curious about this. I was intrigued after reading the outline on how it's about two couples who live in the same apartment in Paris fifty years apart.

The book is split into three sections. The first section is set in 2019, with Anna being the main character. Anna is a psychoanalyst in her late 30s who is suffering from a miscarriage, with her husband being based in London. Elkin then starts telling the story of how she befriends Clémentine, a younger art history graduate.

The second section is set in 1972, and it's about Florence (also a psychoanalyst) and her husband, Henry. Florence would really like to start a family and Henry isn't keen. One thing leads to another and we find them having affairs with other people. The third section brings us back to late 2019, where Anna meets with her past lover, Jonathan, who is now in a relationship with Clémentine. I won't spoil it any further, but let's just say it's quite unusual. It explores many things, including queerness, experimentation and open relationships, which I wasn't expecting. I also found myself being more interested in psychoanalysis after reading this book.

“There is so much we will never know about other people, no matter how much we love them, or how much time we spend with them. We can know all of their mannerisms, know intimately their bodily odours, the schedule they shit on, recognise the very scent of their wind. We like to think this takes all the mystery, all the magic, out of a life together, but there will remain inexorably something unreachable about them. Try as we may, we grasp and can’t lay hold of their essence; there is always something that escapes.”

Really good.

God, I love women. Lauren Elkin is a magician.

These characters are so real. The Parisian backdrop whisked me away. Elkin's prose is enchanting. If you don't love a vibes only book then this is not for you, but if you can appreciate the realism of life and its slow pace, you're in for a treat. I love a book about womanhood and yearning and this didn't disappoint. Very excited to see what Lauren Elkin does next!

Scaffolding is, without doubt, the best debut novel I've read all year (perhaps even one of the best I've ever read). For fans of Rachel Cusk, Deborah Levy, and Lorrie Moore, this is a captivating exploration of the rich, sharp, complexity of relationships - the complications of entwined minds, lives, and bodies - one written with prose which is both tender and clever, laced with humour and heartbreak in equal measures.

Thank you so much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for this free e-ARC!

How well do we really know the people we love?
This is the question that Elkin poses in Scaffolding through a winding narrative of intertwined characters who inhabit the same space but in different decades. I found her writing to be poignant, captivating and reflective. I would normally be put off by a book that started off mentioning so many academic themes I was unfamiliar with by this book made them accessible in an unpatronizing way.

Something about this book didn't click with me, and I'm bummed! Set in the same apartment in Belleville, Paris in 1970 and 2019, we explore the complexities of marriage, monogamy, and desire through two couples. The premise alone had me racing to NetGalley to request this ARC, but unfortunately this book missed the mark for me. I found the jump from one timeline to the next to be awkwardly placed, and would've appreciated more connections between the two couples other than the apartment. I did really enjoy how Elkin portrayed how motherhood and the longing for a child can affect marriages. There were some really beautiful and poignant moments, but unfortunately it didn't save the story for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this title!

Two couples live in the same Parisian apartment, one now, one back in the 1970s. Both couples have issues about desire and selfhood and what they want their lives to look like, and are redecorating the apartment.

Not my favorite, and I can't exactly put my finger on why. There's an intellectualism and essayistic bent (so much Lacan!?) and a somber, thinky self-consciousness that all of the characters have that makes them feel slightly unreal. The actions and changing relationships between the characters feel overly designed and happen very quickly, compared to the slow thought of the rest of the book. I didn't really believe the main character was French or a psychoanalyst.

I like Lauren Elkin's writing—her book of essays about taking the bus in Paris is great—but I feel like the style didn't settle into a novel for me.

Elkin's "Scaffolding" delicately explores themes of feminism, queerness, and desire, offering a nuanced look at human connections. While some concepts may seem complex initially, Elkin's elegant prose makes them accessible and engaging, sparking an interest in delving into deeper theories like Lacan's psychology. The narrative's unique structure drew me in, immersing me in the characters' inner lives. I was completely engrossed and look forward to revisiting this thought-provoking story. The upcoming release of "Scaffolding" fills me with anticipation, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have experienced it early as an ARC.