What do you think?
Rate this book
Adjustments
By turns thoughtful and hilarious (even, inexplicably, both at the same time), this deeply Midwestern book quietly unfolds a vision for how to navigate in a world where we can’t always resolve things.
It begins with an old man's call to the insurance company to get a minor house repair covered. Once the adjuster shows up, a journey both tender and tough is set in motion. These men need each other in ways it will take time to discover.
To complicate matters, the adjuster also needs (and is needed by) his aged landlady Pearl Jenkins. Theirs is a friendship both fraught and kind.
When the latest "outsider" from Minneapolis shows up to this small Dakotan town, with her non-approved hybrid car parked right across from Pearl's house, the cast of characters is almost complete.
Just add the generous appearance of colorful minor characters the adjuster works with and serves in his work (none of whom, arguably, are truly minor) and you're holding a delightfully satisfying book that, while it has you laughing, manages to quietly delve into the ways we bring people in and shut them out—on the job, in the town, or at the threshold of our hearts.
As much as the characters have a relationship with poetry and story (and they do), it is also a profound book about naming both the things that have held us back and the things we want, to move us forward—a book about choosing life.
It begins with an old man's call to the insurance company to get a minor house repair covered. Once the adjuster shows up, a journey both tender and tough is set in motion. These men need each other in ways it will take time to discover.
To complicate matters, the adjuster also needs (and is needed by) his aged landlady Pearl Jenkins. Theirs is a friendship both fraught and kind.
When the latest "outsider" from Minneapolis shows up to this small Dakotan town, with her non-approved hybrid car parked right across from Pearl's house, the cast of characters is almost complete.
Just add the generous appearance of colorful minor characters the adjuster works with and serves in his work (none of whom, arguably, are truly minor) and you're holding a delightfully satisfying book that, while it has you laughing, manages to quietly delve into the ways we bring people in and shut them out—on the job, in the town, or at the threshold of our hearts.
As much as the characters have a relationship with poetry and story (and they do), it is also a profound book about naming both the things that have held us back and the things we want, to move us forward—a book about choosing life.
532 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 3, 2019
10 people are currently reading
2638 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 3, 2020
This is an excellent book, and is surprisingly detailed for a first-time author. There isn’t a lot that happens; it is, instead, about the characters. Willingham does a wonderful job of creating interest in the characters and a desire to find out how things turn out for them. I enjoyed this book.
November 19, 2019
Excellent book!!!
December 5, 2019
I bought both the hard copy (because paper is my favorite) and then the Kindle version as well because there I was reading on my phone when I couldn't sleep at 3 a.m. and then traveling in a car at night. Once started (while I was crafting for my daughter's wedding), I couldn't stop.
If you just want a good read, read this.
If you want to absorb some good writing skills to apply to your own words, read this.
The book is filled with details from the first page. They inserted me right into the setting and helped me feel like I really knew the characters. I took note of colorful phrases and metaphors. Will tells some great mini-stories that made me wonder how much was actually based on the author's real-life experiences. There's even poetry. And wisdom. And community. I rode an emotional rollercoaster throughout--feeling first pensive and then laughing hysterically.
Will Phillips is a kind-hearted insurance claims adjuster with a pained past. He lives in a small town in South Dakota where he rents a second-floor room from Pearl Jenkins, a "pool-hustling" older lady, a mix of mother and manipulator and matchmaker. Most of the scenes that made me laugh involved her. There's Cameron Julian, the pretty woman across the street, and Joe Murphy, a retired Chicago firefighter. We meet Joe on the first page when Will responds to an insurance claim and wonders "what does an old man need with a pair of roller skates" that hang over a dusty church kneeler just inside the front door. There's a lot of physical dust in that house. It turns out all the characters, especially Will, carry some kind of dust, and they all need something. They also need each other. Oh, there's also Barbara, Will's bossy GPS named after . . .
Will may do insurance adjusting, but there's a lot of adjusting happening in this book within each character--and I think within myself as well. This was one of my favorite reads of the year.
If you just want a good read, read this.
If you want to absorb some good writing skills to apply to your own words, read this.
The book is filled with details from the first page. They inserted me right into the setting and helped me feel like I really knew the characters. I took note of colorful phrases and metaphors. Will tells some great mini-stories that made me wonder how much was actually based on the author's real-life experiences. There's even poetry. And wisdom. And community. I rode an emotional rollercoaster throughout--feeling first pensive and then laughing hysterically.
Will Phillips is a kind-hearted insurance claims adjuster with a pained past. He lives in a small town in South Dakota where he rents a second-floor room from Pearl Jenkins, a "pool-hustling" older lady, a mix of mother and manipulator and matchmaker. Most of the scenes that made me laugh involved her. There's Cameron Julian, the pretty woman across the street, and Joe Murphy, a retired Chicago firefighter. We meet Joe on the first page when Will responds to an insurance claim and wonders "what does an old man need with a pair of roller skates" that hang over a dusty church kneeler just inside the front door. There's a lot of physical dust in that house. It turns out all the characters, especially Will, carry some kind of dust, and they all need something. They also need each other. Oh, there's also Barbara, Will's bossy GPS named after . . .
Will may do insurance adjusting, but there's a lot of adjusting happening in this book within each character--and I think within myself as well. This was one of my favorite reads of the year.
January 1, 2020
I don't comment on a novel very often, but I have to say that this is a great read. There is depth to the characters and story. The author's experience in the insurance business gives a unique and special flavor to his first novel. Congratulations Will!
November 26, 2019
Will Phillips is an insurance adjustor, working in the plains, hills, and valleys of South Dakota. He lives in a room of what was once a mansion but is now more of a boarding house. He has a give-and-take relationship with his 70+ landlady, Pearl Jenkins, who is part friend, part mother, part judge, part advisor, and full-time matchmaker who usually cheats at cards. So far, Will has resisted the matchmaking and gone along with the card cheating.
Will’s work, like most work, involves a daily sameness. After a few years, insurance claims become similar. A fire is a fire, and Will can usually sniff out when it was accidental and when it isn’t. Same thing for a stolen truck; even doctors are known to report a truck stolen when it’s time for a replacement. Will investigates a fire claim; the house is owned by a man unmarried to the woman and her children living with him. Will knows how this will end – the house will be replaced or rebuilt, the man will get a new girlfriend, and the woman will find herself and her kids homeless.
It says something about Will that, even as he sees the sameness, it doesn’t numb him to people’s anguish and pain. It may be that Will is still dealing with his own, even as he masks it from himself. That mask begins to fall when he investigates a claim by Joe Murphy, a 73-year-old widower originally from Chicago. Joe and his wife had moved to the area when Joe retired from the fire department in Chicago; his wife had grown up in the area and wanted to go back. After her death, he stayed, and Joe senses something in Will that needs to be reached. Hoe begins to try to reach whatever it is in Will through literature and music.
Landlady Pearl already knows this about Will, too; it’s why she keeps at her matchmaking. Her latest project to match Will to the new woman in town Cameron Julian, who’s moved in across the street. Will, however, keeps slipping away from everyone’s grasp, or trying to. He’s still bearing the scars, figurative and literal, from a woman from long ago. It’s why he left Chicago, where he grew up, and moved to South Dakota. It’s why he resists relationships. Will has trapped himself in his past.
“Adjustments” by Will Willingham is the story of Will Phillips. It is filled with humor and poignancy, insight and emotion. The reader sees into the soul of an inherently decent man who knows he’s broken and has found a way to live with that, until he can’t.
The novel has wonderfully memorable characters. Pearl Jenkins is an original that’s immediately recognizable; some of the funniest moments in the book revolve around her. Joe Murphy is a wise, literate uncle; he reminds me so much of the uncle who introduced me to writers like James Michener that I almost thought the author must have known my uncle, too. Even the unseen but fully experienced presence of Barbara Roberts, the reason Will left Chicago, is drawn so well that she’s familiar, too; many of us have had a Barbara Roberts in our lives.
This is the author’s first novel, and it’s a profoundly beautiful one. Willingham is an editor at Tweetspeak Poetry, and so it’s no surprise to find discussions about poets and poems like “Endymion” by John Keats and fairy tales like the wild swans in the novel. Even the name of Cameron Julian is a likely tribute to Julia Cameron, whose book ‘The Artist’s Way” has been featured at Tweetspeak. Willingham is also an insurance adjustor and lives many of the stories that Will Phillips can tell.
“Adjustments” is more than a good novel; it is a fine novel. It is, simultaneously, moving and real and surprising and true. We see ourselves and our personal histories in Will Phillips, Joe Murphy, and Pearl Jenkins. Like Will, we bear scars. In Joe, Pearl, and Cameron, we experience offered hope. This is a story about what matters, and it’s told beautifully well.
Will’s work, like most work, involves a daily sameness. After a few years, insurance claims become similar. A fire is a fire, and Will can usually sniff out when it was accidental and when it isn’t. Same thing for a stolen truck; even doctors are known to report a truck stolen when it’s time for a replacement. Will investigates a fire claim; the house is owned by a man unmarried to the woman and her children living with him. Will knows how this will end – the house will be replaced or rebuilt, the man will get a new girlfriend, and the woman will find herself and her kids homeless.
It says something about Will that, even as he sees the sameness, it doesn’t numb him to people’s anguish and pain. It may be that Will is still dealing with his own, even as he masks it from himself. That mask begins to fall when he investigates a claim by Joe Murphy, a 73-year-old widower originally from Chicago. Joe and his wife had moved to the area when Joe retired from the fire department in Chicago; his wife had grown up in the area and wanted to go back. After her death, he stayed, and Joe senses something in Will that needs to be reached. Hoe begins to try to reach whatever it is in Will through literature and music.
Landlady Pearl already knows this about Will, too; it’s why she keeps at her matchmaking. Her latest project to match Will to the new woman in town Cameron Julian, who’s moved in across the street. Will, however, keeps slipping away from everyone’s grasp, or trying to. He’s still bearing the scars, figurative and literal, from a woman from long ago. It’s why he left Chicago, where he grew up, and moved to South Dakota. It’s why he resists relationships. Will has trapped himself in his past.
“Adjustments” by Will Willingham is the story of Will Phillips. It is filled with humor and poignancy, insight and emotion. The reader sees into the soul of an inherently decent man who knows he’s broken and has found a way to live with that, until he can’t.
The novel has wonderfully memorable characters. Pearl Jenkins is an original that’s immediately recognizable; some of the funniest moments in the book revolve around her. Joe Murphy is a wise, literate uncle; he reminds me so much of the uncle who introduced me to writers like James Michener that I almost thought the author must have known my uncle, too. Even the unseen but fully experienced presence of Barbara Roberts, the reason Will left Chicago, is drawn so well that she’s familiar, too; many of us have had a Barbara Roberts in our lives.
This is the author’s first novel, and it’s a profoundly beautiful one. Willingham is an editor at Tweetspeak Poetry, and so it’s no surprise to find discussions about poets and poems like “Endymion” by John Keats and fairy tales like the wild swans in the novel. Even the name of Cameron Julian is a likely tribute to Julia Cameron, whose book ‘The Artist’s Way” has been featured at Tweetspeak. Willingham is also an insurance adjustor and lives many of the stories that Will Phillips can tell.
“Adjustments” is more than a good novel; it is a fine novel. It is, simultaneously, moving and real and surprising and true. We see ourselves and our personal histories in Will Phillips, Joe Murphy, and Pearl Jenkins. Like Will, we bear scars. In Joe, Pearl, and Cameron, we experience offered hope. This is a story about what matters, and it’s told beautifully well.
December 27, 2019
This book commanded a slow, thoughtful read to absorb the nuances of this skilled author’s work. On the surface level, Will’s story is somewhat mundane, if not comical, in his life as an insurance adjuster. All the characters around him provide more drama than he’d care for. But on a deeper level, Will’s journey is fraught with conflicted internal dialogue that moves his story through a fantastic transformation. Loved these characters and the community they create!
January 28, 2020
I appreciated both the sense of humor and gravity of emotional depth. I also enjoyed the behind-the-scenes perspective into the wild world of insurance adjusting (I had no idea!).
For me, this book offered an insightful and empathy-inducing look into the variety of ways people treat those in vulnerable situations and how that plays out for them. I'd like to read another book by Will Willingham.
For me, this book offered an insightful and empathy-inducing look into the variety of ways people treat those in vulnerable situations and how that plays out for them. I'd like to read another book by Will Willingham.
July 12, 2022
Adjustments Will Willingham
The poet John Keats was not a funny fellow, although he did possess a dry wit. But Keats upside-down? That’s funny.
Will Phillips, an insurance adjustor, owns a frayed copy of Keats’ poetry that is bound upside-down. Joe Murphy — Will’s client and eventual friend — owns the same collection, but bound in the traditional fashion and in pristine condition.
"[Will] closed the book and set it on his thigh, resting his hand on the cover. ‘It’s really beautiful next to mine.’
"Joe picked up Will’s copy and thumbed the pages. ‘They’re the same. Open it. Look inside. Read something.’”
"Adjustments" opens with two epigraphs. One from the film "Double Indemnity" (Will’s hero is Barton Keyes), and one from Keats:
"my mind has been the most discontented
and restless one that was ever
put into a body too small for it"
In 1819 Keats wrote a letter to a friend, in despair about his poetic talent. Scholars now call that year the “Living Year,” the “Fertile Year,” or the “Great Year,” in which he wrote his best poems.
Will is having a great year. He just doesn’t know it yet.
When he’s summoned to an insurance claim at the home of Joe, he doesn’t know his life will be changed. Meeting Joe will bring Will from isolation into community. He’ll find a cast of small-town characters who like him for himself: Joe, of course; Pearl Jenkins, his know-it-all landlady; and Cameron, the girl not quite next door but across the street.
This change happens in a story marked by its humor. "Adjustments" is very funny, and it almost shouldn’t be. Insurance adjusters like Will are on the scene at fires and car accidents and at homes with roofs that go drip in the night. In the course of his job Will meets lonely people, hurting people. He encounters people who have died, and he finds the things they left behind — a woman’s black shoe, a Barbie doll head. He has to deal with an insensitive business partner, nicknamed Mad Dog, and with possibly The Most Frustrating Cadre of County Employees in the Dakotas. He does so with a good-natured chuckle, often at himself.
“Despite his idiosyncrasies and dysfunction, he’s having a life,” said Will Willingham, author of Adjustments. Some of the main character’s difficulties in adjusting are of his own making. Says the author, “Partly because Will has such a difficult time being firm about things he finds himself in the middle of this thing, and then he finds himself being happy about it: ‘Well, I guess we’ll go with it.’”
But the person he can’t just go with, the one that I as a reader am still not quite sure what to do with, is Barbara. Just as poetry resists easy interpretation — including Keats — so does Adjustments’ Barbara.
We first meet Barbara as the name Will gives to his GPS. But her bossing of him is not limited to giving driving directions. She nags at him to stop smoking. She has an outsized role in his memories.
“Barbara had to be this massive thorn in his side who is actually a real person,” Will Willingham said. “Barbara is still such a question mark to me. It’s the most bizarre relationship I’ve ever seen.”
When Keats went on his six-week walking tour, the one that led to the great poetry, he brought along one book: a translation of Dante. Will Phillips travels through his adjustments with two books: the upside-down Keats and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans. The fairy tale serves as a metaphor for the secret that is Will. But Will thinks he’s the only one in the world with a secret.
Cameron tries to disabuse him of that notion:
[Will]:’Do you suppose Pearl has a secret? Or Joe?’
[Cameron]: ‘Oh, I’m quite sure they do. You need to stop covering your eyes with your wing so you can see them.’”
That’s what this story is about: being seen. It’s about the illusions we create and about learning to listen to the little man inside, the one insurance investigator Barton Keyes refers to as “the little man in here.”
The year after Keats’ six-week adventure was his Great and Living Year, when he wrote his masterpieces: Hyperion, To Autumn, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a Nightingale. As "Adjustments" ends (after an adventure of about two weeks), we get the impression that Will Phillips’ Great and Living Year is just starting.
“There’s a sense of hope at the end,” Will Willingham said.
Character Will kicks off his great year by writing a poem:
"She eats fear with morning coffee—
chunks of ash black in her mouth,
worries cinders
between delicate fingers
mixed with a trickle
from her cheek
to spread on burnt toast"
Watch out, Keats.
The poet John Keats was not a funny fellow, although he did possess a dry wit. But Keats upside-down? That’s funny.
Will Phillips, an insurance adjustor, owns a frayed copy of Keats’ poetry that is bound upside-down. Joe Murphy — Will’s client and eventual friend — owns the same collection, but bound in the traditional fashion and in pristine condition.
"[Will] closed the book and set it on his thigh, resting his hand on the cover. ‘It’s really beautiful next to mine.’
"Joe picked up Will’s copy and thumbed the pages. ‘They’re the same. Open it. Look inside. Read something.’”
"Adjustments" opens with two epigraphs. One from the film "Double Indemnity" (Will’s hero is Barton Keyes), and one from Keats:
"my mind has been the most discontented
and restless one that was ever
put into a body too small for it"
In 1819 Keats wrote a letter to a friend, in despair about his poetic talent. Scholars now call that year the “Living Year,” the “Fertile Year,” or the “Great Year,” in which he wrote his best poems.
Will is having a great year. He just doesn’t know it yet.
When he’s summoned to an insurance claim at the home of Joe, he doesn’t know his life will be changed. Meeting Joe will bring Will from isolation into community. He’ll find a cast of small-town characters who like him for himself: Joe, of course; Pearl Jenkins, his know-it-all landlady; and Cameron, the girl not quite next door but across the street.
This change happens in a story marked by its humor. "Adjustments" is very funny, and it almost shouldn’t be. Insurance adjusters like Will are on the scene at fires and car accidents and at homes with roofs that go drip in the night. In the course of his job Will meets lonely people, hurting people. He encounters people who have died, and he finds the things they left behind — a woman’s black shoe, a Barbie doll head. He has to deal with an insensitive business partner, nicknamed Mad Dog, and with possibly The Most Frustrating Cadre of County Employees in the Dakotas. He does so with a good-natured chuckle, often at himself.
“Despite his idiosyncrasies and dysfunction, he’s having a life,” said Will Willingham, author of Adjustments. Some of the main character’s difficulties in adjusting are of his own making. Says the author, “Partly because Will has such a difficult time being firm about things he finds himself in the middle of this thing, and then he finds himself being happy about it: ‘Well, I guess we’ll go with it.’”
But the person he can’t just go with, the one that I as a reader am still not quite sure what to do with, is Barbara. Just as poetry resists easy interpretation — including Keats — so does Adjustments’ Barbara.
We first meet Barbara as the name Will gives to his GPS. But her bossing of him is not limited to giving driving directions. She nags at him to stop smoking. She has an outsized role in his memories.
“Barbara had to be this massive thorn in his side who is actually a real person,” Will Willingham said. “Barbara is still such a question mark to me. It’s the most bizarre relationship I’ve ever seen.”
When Keats went on his six-week walking tour, the one that led to the great poetry, he brought along one book: a translation of Dante. Will Phillips travels through his adjustments with two books: the upside-down Keats and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans. The fairy tale serves as a metaphor for the secret that is Will. But Will thinks he’s the only one in the world with a secret.
Cameron tries to disabuse him of that notion:
[Will]:’Do you suppose Pearl has a secret? Or Joe?’
[Cameron]: ‘Oh, I’m quite sure they do. You need to stop covering your eyes with your wing so you can see them.’”
That’s what this story is about: being seen. It’s about the illusions we create and about learning to listen to the little man inside, the one insurance investigator Barton Keyes refers to as “the little man in here.”
The year after Keats’ six-week adventure was his Great and Living Year, when he wrote his masterpieces: Hyperion, To Autumn, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to a Nightingale. As "Adjustments" ends (after an adventure of about two weeks), we get the impression that Will Phillips’ Great and Living Year is just starting.
“There’s a sense of hope at the end,” Will Willingham said.
Character Will kicks off his great year by writing a poem:
"She eats fear with morning coffee—
chunks of ash black in her mouth,
worries cinders
between delicate fingers
mixed with a trickle
from her cheek
to spread on burnt toast"
Watch out, Keats.
April 1, 2020
On the surface, this is a novel about the conversations of an insurance adjuster in a small town. Above all, Willingham is a master at dialogue. I could hear the characters' voices and see the movements of their bodies so clearly, while they were speaking, that I may as well have been watching a movie.
It was what protagonist Will didn't say, or couldn't or wouldn't, that drove me a little crazy and set this novel apart from, say, one of Stewart O'Nan's. Adjustments is quiet, but the reader can feel the tension of Will's untold story, and it's a whopper. It's enough to make of Will a 45-year-old virgin and a 12-year tenant in the one sad room of a stately home in the middle of nowhere. At the outset of the novel, he has no familial contact of which we're aware, and the only people with whom he's been interacting regularly are 1) his elderly landlord and 2) his business partner. He's been avoiding even an old friend 1.5 hours away.
So things start to fold open (like a swan wing) for Will, but he's clearly not a guy who moves quickly. By the end, I was pretty sure he was on a path to a different kind of life, but he hadn't arrived, yet, or told me his secrets unless I count the arm/wing, which is scratching the surface; there are hints of so much more.
The brilliance of the book is that, even as it frustrated me and talked me to death at points, it changed me...or at least made me want to change. It made me want to be less Margery Burnett and more Joe Murphy. It made me want to be more patient in winning over the Wills of the world because--even if they never tell me their stories--they understand so many deep and lovely things.
It was what protagonist Will didn't say, or couldn't or wouldn't, that drove me a little crazy and set this novel apart from, say, one of Stewart O'Nan's. Adjustments is quiet, but the reader can feel the tension of Will's untold story, and it's a whopper. It's enough to make of Will a 45-year-old virgin and a 12-year tenant in the one sad room of a stately home in the middle of nowhere. At the outset of the novel, he has no familial contact of which we're aware, and the only people with whom he's been interacting regularly are 1) his elderly landlord and 2) his business partner. He's been avoiding even an old friend 1.5 hours away.
So things start to fold open (like a swan wing) for Will, but he's clearly not a guy who moves quickly. By the end, I was pretty sure he was on a path to a different kind of life, but he hadn't arrived, yet, or told me his secrets unless I count the arm/wing, which is scratching the surface; there are hints of so much more.
The brilliance of the book is that, even as it frustrated me and talked me to death at points, it changed me...or at least made me want to change. It made me want to be less Margery Burnett and more Joe Murphy. It made me want to be more patient in winning over the Wills of the world because--even if they never tell me their stories--they understand so many deep and lovely things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 19, 2020
Inside of Adjustments is a good book waiting to get out. Will Phillips is an insurance adjuster in South Dakota who deeply resents his GPS who has nicknamed Barbara. He purposefully ignores her and often gets lost. He is an interesting and entertaining character and I greatly enjoyed many of his side adventures. Will seems to be haunted by the past and has trouble moving forward.
The book contains an interesting and well developed cast of characters. While this could have been a meaningful and enlightening novel it was bogged down by too many, too lengthy scenes which descend from amusing to tiresome and the same can be said of some of the characters.
The final back story which remained much of a mystery throughout the book could have been better formulated and conceptualized. It was a sad fizzle at the end.
I enjoyed my trips traipsing around the hills and dells of South Dakota, but I was ready to cut my trip short.
The book contains an interesting and well developed cast of characters. While this could have been a meaningful and enlightening novel it was bogged down by too many, too lengthy scenes which descend from amusing to tiresome and the same can be said of some of the characters.
The final back story which remained much of a mystery throughout the book could have been better formulated and conceptualized. It was a sad fizzle at the end.
I enjoyed my trips traipsing around the hills and dells of South Dakota, but I was ready to cut my trip short.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews