Out Of Office Claire Ashworth Wrenfield & Co. | 2026 | 304pp
Deborah Halstrom is out of the office until further notice. Julian Reyes cannot stop replying. What begins as a scheduling conflict becomes a romance that cannot be contained in a subject line.
Review
★½ (1.5/5) This email should have been a meeting
In Claire Ashworth’s ill-conceived new romantic comedy, the entire narrative unfolds through automated out-of-office replies, each one a little more unravelled than the last, as two mid-level compliance officers at rival insurance firms drift from polite scheduling notices into something resembling intimacy. The early chapters show glimpses of Ashworth’s trademark playfulness - Deborah’s message stays fixed at ‘I will respond to your email upon my return on the 14th’ for nearly thirty pages, while Julian’s replies grow steadily longer, steadily stranger, and steadily less related to his actual whereabouts.
It doesn’t take long, however, for the ingenuity of the structural gimmick to reveal its limitations. Julian’s messages, which are supposed to function as a kind of epistolary confession, each one timestamped with the false authority of an automated system, grow tired and sweaty. The gag of Deborah’s fixed message rapidly wears out its welcome. And a subject line that reads simply ‘RE: RE: RE: RE:’ is not the punchline Ashworth believes it to be.
The book regains some of its mojo in the third act, when Deborah’s return date is repeatedly, mysteriously extended, and Julian’s IT department begins flagging his replies for containing what one internal memo calls ‘an unusual volume of feeling’. However, the author never quite explains whether Deborah is avoiding the office or avoiding Julian, and by the final exchange - dated eleven months after the first and offering no clear resolution to the relationship, the novel or the email chain - it’s hard to imagine any reader caring one way or the other.
About the Author
Claire Ashworth is the author of Pardon My Em Dash, Fine, I Like You and You Again, Apparently. She holds a masters degree in narratology from the University of Edinburgh and is dedicated to the correct deployment of the ‘Reply All’ option.
Who Is This Book For?
Readers who inexplicably enjoy being BCC’ed into other people’s correspondence
Bwahahaha :)
I don't know if anyone listens to the Magnus Protocol but that reminds me...there's an episode involving an email chain with RE:RE:REs increasing in number and the monotone computer voice reading that out has sent me:)