The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Smallwood, Christine. The Life of the Mind. Hogarth, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group. 2021. First Edition. As the protagonist moves through a post-miscarriage period of about six weeks, the narrative portrays her as being focused on the details of her present because the dreams of her past have been unfulfilled, and her hopes for the future seem futile.

The novel begins with protagonist Dorothy in the washroom of the library at the university where she teaches. She looks closely at the blood that has just come out of her uterus, the narration revealing that she is in the midst of a drawn-out miscarriage. The narration also reveals that the process of expelling blood and other tissue from her uterus was triggered when Dorothy took medication intended to do exactly that. Meanwhile, she contemplates how this particular ending – i.e., of her pregnancy – seems to be connected to several other endings. These include what she experiences as the ending of her hopes for success in academia, and what she believes to be the long, slow, apocalyptic ending of the world. The whole time she also avoids phone calls from her therapist, whom she had not told about her pregnancy or the miscarriage.

At home, life for Dorothy seems to continue along a path that might be described as normal for her and her partner, Rog. They argue and banter about social issues, spend as much time interacting with their cell phones as they do interacting with each other, and go to bed at relative peace. They do not discuss either the pregnancy or the miscarriage.

The next day, Dorothy has a text conversation with her best friend Gaby, a wealthy young woman who has just had a baby and who seems to be consumed with both anxiety and desperation to post the perfect photo of her child online. Dorothy also visits a second therapist, whom she has started to consult out of concerns that she is not getting as much as she thinks she should from her first. While waiting for her session to start, she learns via social media that a former graduate school rival, Alexandra, is about to achieve significant publishing success. When Dorothy sees that Judith, the professor she and Alexandra both had, has been praising Alexandra, she becomes upset and stops following the news feed. When the session begins, the second therapist tells Dorothy about a podcast she is creating, in which she includes actual conversations with her clients. The part of Dorothy that wants to be asked to be included is upset when she is not asked, but the part of her that wants to keep her life private is relieved. After her session, she teaches one of her classes, Writing Apocalypse, and has uneasy but non-confrontational encounters with a couple of students. That night, on the subway home, Dorothy encounters a homeless man who seems to have mental health issues, and finds herself comparing her situation to his. The whole day, Dorothy repeatedly checks her underwear and feminine hygiene products for signs of blood, which she repeatedly finds.

A short while afterwards, Dorothy visits her OB/GYN to see if there is anything wrong. She learns that she is more of a bleeder than most, but is assured that everything is fine. Later, she visits an underwater puppet show with her mother and her mother’s young protégé, finding herself contemplating the different qualities of motherhood that her mother is showing, and starting to wonder whether life is just something that people do to pass the time.

A few weeks later, Dorothy goes to Las Vegas to attend an academic conference, and finds herself in conversation with a fellow academic that she once admired, but now has little in common with. She also has an encounter with Judith, her former mentor, who uses her time with Dorothy to cheer herself up after the death of a friend. Finally, Dorothy also has an encounter with a young man visiting from Kansas, drunk on freedom but still polite.

When Dorothy gets back home, she finds herself at a party hosted by Gaby, who happily reveals that she is pregnant but that she intends to have an abortion. Dorothy does not have a particularly good time at the party, but agrees to sit with Gaby when she takes the same pills that Dorothy did, and has her self-induced abortion. A few days later, Dorothy has some challenging encounters at the university where she works, and feels frustrated with where her academic life has taken her. She keeps Gaby company during the abortion, not entirely sure what she is there to do. Once Gaby is finished, Dorothy goes home and grades papers submitted by the students in her Writing Apocalypse class. She gives each of them the same grade and then throws most of them in the trash.