Having stumbled onto Hilary Leichter with her enthralling more recent publication, Terrace Story, I thought I was going to wait until the new year to tackle her backlist title, Temporary. But then the audiobook found me and I decided this was a hopefully delightful way to end the year instead.

What greeted me was a boundlessly quirky novel that explores the temporariness of the roles we play, the jobs we have, and life, in general. This strange little gem opens with absolute chaos, with Leichter having thrown us headfirst into the deep end of her weird world.

In Temporary, a young woman takes on a variety of roles in her career as a temp. This dissection of life extends into her personal one as they blend together, overlapping and intruding. Except, in the tale Leichter has crafted, nothing is out of bounds — pirate, mannequin, barnacle, killer, daughter, building, space station, mother, etc. Equally playful are the labels given to others — particularly her large cohort of various and sundry boyfriends: tall boyfriend, insurance boyfriend, and so on.

As vivacious as it is odd, Leichter uses the young temp to explore our desire to seek out permanence and stability — testing when to stay and when to move on, when it's our choice and when it's not — even if the feeling only lasts a little while.