Elkin writes these events as complicated adventures in wrong decisions—which, crucially, she neither justifies nor condemns. She lets her characters be bad yet ordinary, bad yet sympathy-inducing, bad yet worthy of a good life ... Elkin is deft but clear in reminding readers that there’s a distinction between badness and evil, or badness and hate.
Smart and steamy ... The changing of time periods and narrators makes the story resemble a where-does-this-fit puzzle, at times a challenge. But piecing it together in the end is part of what makes Scaffolding a pleasure overall — maybe even therapeutic.
The novel can feel like one long, Socratic dialogue between Anna and Clémentine, debating the value of such work, the ethics of sex and fidelity and childbearing and feminism ... Shrewd and satisfying.
