Mislaid - Hardcover

Zink, Nell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0008100543 ISBN 13: 9780008100544

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2015

Synopsis

Startlingly radical, dazzlingly witty, unlike anything that has come before – this is the most exciting debut novel published this year.

‘Nell Zink is a writer of extraordinary talent and range. Her work insistently raises the possibility that the world is larger and stranger than the world you think you know.’ Jonathan Franzen

Virginia, 1966. The motionless deeps of the lake outside Stillwater College are being ruffled. Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, is determinedly fondling Peggy, an ingénue freshman with literary pretensions, in his canoe. So begins a long affair but the two are mismatched from the start.

The story that follows rocks the boat in every sense. Nell Zink’s hugely entertaining, totally unique Mislaid explodes the nuclear family and topples every foundation of identity – black and white, gay and straight, “normal” and very very strange...

About this title

Review:

‘Mislaid is that oft-discussed, rarely spotted phenomenon – a Great American Novel. It catapults Zink straight into the company of not only Franzen, but also Donna Tartt and Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe and John Irving. Zink takes her big-name predecessors in her stride and goes that bit weirder ... An extraordinary talent’ Daily Telegraph

‘One of the most exciting debut novels that will be published this year’ Guardian

‘A bold new take on the classic mistaken identity plot ... Crazy as it is, Mislaid is also an ambitious and tightly plotted novel, a welcome successor to her dazzling debut The Wallcreeper ... Her novels are two of the most audacious and exciting I’ve read in a long time’ Independent

‘Delicious ... Franzen might be right on this writer: Zink has written two books both worth talking about in the best salons in town, which will unsettle them in turn.’ Independent on Sunday

‘Zink appears to have sprung fully-formed on to the page, her narrative voice laconic and scalpel-sharp, and often shockingly funny in its dry asides and understatements ... Mislaid marks the arrival of an unusual and original talent, one fearless in her approach to language and subject. Where she goes next is anyone’s guess, but it will surely defy expectations’ Observer

‘Happily for the reader, the hype is matched by the quality and originality of Zink’s writing ... Direct, provocative and self-knowing... Things are never as they seem in Mislaid, a unique romp of a book that takes centuries’ worth of confines and stereotypes and turns them inside out’ Irish Times

‘The novel’s charm and intelligence run deep. It’s a provocative masquerade with heart, not just an exercise in role reversals, reminding us that the gaps and cracks between our insides and our outsides are the spaces where our spirits live’ New York Times Book Review

‘A high comedy of racial identity ... Zink is a comic writer par excellence’ New Yorker

‘Funny, sexy and daring’ Charlotte Mendelson, Observer

From the Back Cover:

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A sharply observed, mordantly funny, and startlingly original novel from an exciting, unconventional new voice--the author of the acclaimed The Wallcreeper--about the making and unmaking of the American family that lays bare all of our assumptions about race and racism, sexuality and desire.

Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingenue 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 two 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.

Worried that Lee will have her committed for her erratic behavior, Peggy goes underground, adopting an African American persona for her and her daughter. They squat in a house in an African-American settlement, eventually moving to a housing project where no one questions their true racial identities. As Peggy and Lee's children grow up, they must contend with diverse emotional issues: Byrdie deals with his father's compulsive honesty; while Karen struggles with her mother's lies--she knows neither her real age, nor that she is -white, - nor that she has any other family.

Years later, a minority scholarship lands Karen at the University of Virginia, where Byrdie is in his senior year. Eventually the long lost siblings will meet, setting off a series of misunderstandings and culminating in a comedic finale worthy of Shakespeare.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0008100543
• ISBN 13: 9780008100544
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304