nomadreader

The backstory: Mislaid, Nell Zink's second novel, was on the 2015 National Book Award longlist. I previously enjoyed her first novel, The Wallcreeper . The basics:  "Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966: Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start—she’s a lesbian, he’s gay—but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind." (from the publisher) My thoughts: That description sets up the novel well, but it's somewhat impossible to discuss the novel without giving away a bit more plot than I normally. But Mislaid  is not a novel one reads for the plot. Once Peggy takes her daughter, they begin living under assumed identities. She dresses like a man, and she procures the ...

The backstory: The Wallcreeper , Nell Zink's first novel, was named a 2014 New York Times  Notable book. The basics: The publisher uses this Keith Gessen blurb as the summary, so I will too: "Who is Nell Zink? She claims to be an expatriate living in northeast Germany. Maybe she is; maybe she isn't. I don’t know. I do know that this first novel arrives with a voice that is fully formed: mature, hilarious, terrifyingly intelligent, and wicked. The novel is about a bird-loving American couple that moves to Europe and becomes, basically, eco-terrorists. This is strange, and interesting, but in between is some writing about marriage, love, fidelity, Europe, and saving the earth that is as funny and as grown-up as anything I've read in years. And there are some jokes in here that a young Don DeLillo would kill to have written. I hope he doesn’t kill Nell Zink." My thoughts: The Wallcreeper  has one of the most memorable narrators I've encountered. Tiffany ...