Acclaim for Halle Butler and Jillian
“[A] claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing book.”
—Lydia Kiesling, The New Yorker
“Few authors capture the acidic angst of downtrodden millennials like Butler.”
—The Huffington Post
“Droll, scatological, and delightfully subversive.”
—The Rumpus
“A frank depiction of modern indecency.”
—Electric Literature
“So human that you’ll want to push [the characters] away from you and cuddle them close at the same time.”
—Flavorwire
“Outrageous . . . Reads like rubbernecking or a junk-food binge, compelling a horrified fascination and bleak laughter in the face of outrageously painted everyday sadness.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] poison pill of a novel . . . Butler’s aim is perfect, and her touch deft.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] striking debut.”
—Booklist
“This book is incredible. The deadpan way it nails what it is to be a human who lies to herself and tells different lies to everyone else makes me want to laugh and scream. It is hilarious and weird, my two favorite qualities in a book.”
—Lindsay Hunter, author of Ugly Girls and Don’t Kiss Me
“An authentic and beautiful portrait of a self-proclaimed asshole.”
—Chelsea Martin, author of Even Though I Don’t Miss You
“Halle Butler’s Jillian is a wry, smart portrait of two women set on separate courses of self-destruction, each of them judging the other on the way down. This is a bold debut, a quick, vicious ride.”
—Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day
“A hilariously brutal tale of a woman destroying herself with cheery selfishness. I laughed myself nauseous watching the people surrounding Jillian struggle between exasperated judgment and aggravated compassion. Never before has a pair of characters made me so sick with hatred and empathy at once. Butler is writing exactly what I want to read.”
—Jac Jemc, author of A Different Bed Every Time and My Only Wife
PENGUIN BOOKS
JILLIAN
Halle Butler is the author of Jillian and The New Me. She has been named a National Book Award Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a Granta Best Young American Novelist.
PENGUIN BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in the United States of America by Curbside Splendor Publishing 2015
This edition published in Penguin Books 2020
Copyright © 2015, 2020 by Halle Butler
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Chapter 3 originally appeared, in slightly different form, in The Nervous Breakdown in 2015 and chapter 5 originally appeared, in slightly different form, in Hobart in 2013.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Butler, Halle, author.
Title: Jillian / Halle Butler.
Description: First edition. | New York: Penguin Books, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019041017 (print) | LCCN 2019041018 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780143135524 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780525507185 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3602.U8716 J55 2020 (print) |
LCC PS3602.U8716 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041017
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041018
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Lynn Buckley
Cover typography: based on a design by Rachel Willey
Cover images: (burn marks) Shutterstock; (cigarette) Nathan Perkel / Gallery Stock
pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Acclaim for Halle Butler
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
PART 1
1
Jillian was in the rapture of one of her great musings.
“But what I really want is to be a personal assistant, or to go door-to-door and help people get organized. Not, like, as a psychologist, but I might be good at that, too. More like helping people get the right bins and sort through their stuff. Just go in and help people get organized.”
“You really like organizing?” Megan asked. Megan was not listening. She pronounced it flatly. “You really like organizing.”
“I’m obsessed,” said Jillian. “My house is packed with color-coded boxes and labels and stuff like that.”
“You’re a collector,” said Megan.
Jillian burped, a discreet, air-valve release through her mouth. “Ha ha, yeah.”
The phone rang. Megan picked it up and said, “Good afternoon, doctors’ office.” The woman on the phone asked if this was Dr. Billings’s office. Megan answered in the affirmative.
“Well, finally,” said the woman. “I left a message on your machine and I did not receive a call within twenty-four hours, as promised.”
“How may I help you?” asked Megan.
“I was beginning to think Dr. Billings was a figment of my mind,” said the woman. “Like I was imagining him, and that maybe I had dreamed leaving the message.”
Megan sniffed.
“But when I checked my call history just now, I saw that I had really called.” Megan didn’t have the energy.
“Umm, hello, hello,” said the woman.
“Yes, how may I help you?” said Megan.
“I’d like to make an appointment, like I said in my message. Should I just start from the top?”
“Could I have your name and availability, please?” said Megan. She thought of her current mindset as “allowing the shit to happen.”
The microwave beeped in the background. The microwave was in the closet where they kept drug samples, and it sat on top of the mini-fridge. People used the mini-fridge to store both lunches and biological samples, side by side. Megan did not like to use the mini-fridge or the microwave. She did not like to think about how the heat from the microwave might combine the side-by-side contents of the mini-fridge.
She thought about the microwave and the mini-fridge while scheduling the appointment, and she also thought about how people affectionately referred to using the microwave as “nuking.”
“All right, Mrs. Davies, we’ll see you next Wednesday at ten o’clock,” said Megan.
Jillian walked back to her desk from the microwave, holding
