Roxane Gay on the Modernist Puzzles She Bought in Quarantine

I am very bad at puzzles. This is a recent and humbling discovery now that, in the midst of the coronavirus quarantine, puzzles are all the rage. Before I sat down to do a puzzle recently, I thought I was really good at them. I was excited to zip through a 1,000-piece modern art puzzle, with splashes of color and artistically inscrutable lines everywhere. I am not sure where this puzzle confidence came from—probably a vestige of childhood, when I easily assembled puzzles with 16 pieces but felt like I had accomplished something far more impressive.

The process always begins with industry and optimism. I sort the pieces into piles of similar color or pattern. I separate out all the edges and start putting them together so I have a frame within which I can work. Then the trouble begins.

Because I am bad at puzzles, it is a laborious process of staring at the same 1,000 pieces for hours and hours on end, hoping I will see something that allows me to make a whole out of the disparate parts. I start to lose hope. I decide there are pieces missing. I study the box, looking for landmarks to orient my work. I get frustrated. I decide it is hopeless and I am done with puzzling forever. I manage to put one piece in its proper place, and the flush of excitement is just enough to keep me from giving up. It fills the time.

The thing about puzzles is that most of them are not images I want to assemble—bucolic pastoral settings, warm Christmas tableaus with ruddy-cheeked Santas, cityscapes, landscapes, historical settings, wizards, whatever. A puzzle is a puzzle, but if you’re going to spend hours on end staring at something, it helps if you actually like what you’re looking at. My puzzle pickiness is complicated by the current puzzle scarcity. With most people isolating in their homes, puzzles are all the rage, and the good puzzles are sold out. Most puzzle companies are projecting delivery times in July and August as they wait for new stock.

BetterCo. puzzles are exactly what the company’s motto says—beautiful modern puzzles. It offers a selection of only eight puzzles, but even that is refreshing. Instead of having to browse through hundreds of ugly-adjacent puzzles, you have a finite, manageable number of options from which to choose. Not only do these puzzles look good, with bright, crisp images and solid cuts, they are also by far the most difficult puzzles I’ve ever attempted. A real sadist designed them, and I respect that. Every time you think you’ve made headway, the puzzle reminds you that you are, in fact, nowhere. That modern art puzzle took me three weeks to finally complete—with help from my fiancée, who does not care for puzzles but is now drawn to the fun and frustration.

There are other modern and interesting puzzles out there, lest you think BetterCo. is the only game in town. I preordered a Boobs puzzle from Jiggy that looks fun, and the Midnight Garden puzzle from Lemonade Pursuits. I found a Now House by Jonathan Adler Vertigo puzzle on eBay because yes, puzzles really are that hard to find right now. Presently, though, I am engaged in a tense standoff with the Milky Way. I haven’t even been able to complete the frame over the past three days. Every piece sort of looks the same. There is a lot of trial and error, small tantrums, and minor despair. Still, I persist and find all this relaxing despite the frustration. Still, I am very bad at puzzles.