Mislaid: A Novel
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

In Zink's second novel (following The Wallcreeper, named one of the best books of 2014 by PW), a gay man and a gay woman meet at Virginia's Stillwater College in the 1960s, marry and have children, and eventually separate-it's a deceptively slim epic of family life that rivals a Greek tragedy in drama and wisdom. The mother, Meg, goes on the lam, taking the identity of a deceased black girl for her daughter, Karen, to start a new life in the rural South (Meg tells the community that she and her daughter are of African-American lineage, though they are white), while her son, Byrdie, remains with the father, Lee. Years later, the kids' paths cross in a confluence of events at the University of Virginia. The novel deftly handles race, sexuality, and coming of age. Zink's insight is beautifully braided into understated prose that never lets the tension subside; the narrator's third-person voice is wry, and the dialogue is snappy. In one scene Meg reflects on how she'll raise Karen in her new identity: "Children have no hearts [...] and their minds are rickety towers of surreal detritus." The various ways the characters' memories and motives affect the action is frequently "mislaid," from the inciting relationship to the far-flung situations in which the characters find themselves-it all points to Zink's masterly subtlety and depth. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A number of works of fiction lately have touched on the topic of a white person living with another racial identity, including Jess Row's Your Face in Mine, Reif Larson's I Am Radar, and this latest from Zink (The Wallcreeper), all of which seem particularly prescient in light of the recent Rachel Dolezal controversy. In this case, 1960s lesbian teenager Peggy marries her gay college poetry professor after getting pregnant, then runs away with her daughter, adopting African American identities for both of them. That mother and daughter are blond-haired and white is explained in the book by the "one drop" rule, and the hardships and challenges she and her daughter face as "people of color" figure prominently in the story. VERDICT The setup and book jacket seem to promise an outlandish satire, but the story itself is chilly and lackluster; Cassandra Campbell's narration is pleasant but does nothing to enhance the ostensible humor of the story (which this reviewer found to be utterly lacking). At least there's a happy ending. ["Crafting a zany story with outlandish characters doing the unexpected, Zink successfully creates a comedy of errors offering a happy ending for an impossible situation": LJ 4/1/15 review of the Ecco: Harper-Collins hc.]--Victoria A. Caplinger, -NoveList, Durham, NC © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

New novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Wallcreeper (2014).It's 1965. Peggy Vaillaincourt is a first-year student at a tiny women's college in Virginia. The fact that she's a lesbian doesn't stop her from falling into an intensely physical affair with Lee Fleming, Stillwater College's most famousand most famously gayfaculty member. Their relationship leads to a pregnancy. This pregnancy leads to marriage, and the marriage leads to another pregnancy. Eventually, Peggy leaves, taking her daughter but not her son. And, as she starts her new life, Peggy decides to pass as black. This is an ambitious premise, one that seems poised for an interrogation of race, sexuality, and social class. What Zink delivers isnot much of anything. The novel reads more like an outline for a story than the story itself. To cite just one example: "She was feeling new feelings, emotional and physical, new pains and longings, and she couldn't make notesbut she kept careful track of them, mentally." Zink offers no description of the precise nature of these "pains and longings." She merely mentions that they exist, which, given the context, could probably go without saying. It would be surprising if Peggy's discovery of sexwith a man, no lessdidn't provoke "new feelings." This is typical of the novel as a whole. It's not necessary, of course, for a protagonist to be introspective and insightful, but it's a problem when the author herself seems not terribly interested in her creation. Zink's lack of curiosity about her characters and the connections between them seems especially odd because notions of identityhow we see ourselves, how others see usare such a significant feature of her very baroque plot. A promising premise rendered in dispirited, disappointing prose. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

From the author of The Wallcreeper, this novel of a family zigs and zags across lines of sexuality and race. (See review on p. 86.)

In Zink's second novel (following The Wallcreeper, named one of the best books of 2014 by PW), a gay man and a gay woman meet at Virginia's Stillwater College in the 1960s, marry and have children, and eventually separate—it's a deceptively slim epic of family life that rivals a Greek tragedy in drama and wisdom. The mother, Meg, goes on the lam, taking the identity of a deceased black girl for her daughter, Karen, to start a new life in the rural South (Meg tells the community that she and her daughter are of African-American lineage, though they are white), while her son, Byrdie, remains with the father, Lee. Years later, the kids' paths cross in a confluence of events at the University of Virginia. The novel deftly handles race, sexuality, and coming of age. Zink's insight is beautifully braided into understated prose that never lets the tension subside; the narrator's third-person voice is wry, and the dialogue is snappy. In one scene Meg reflects on how she'll raise Karen in her new identity: "Children have no hearts and their minds are rickety towers of surreal detritus." The various ways the characters' memories and motives affect the action is frequently "mislaid," from the inciting relationship to the far-flung situations in which the characters find themselves—it all points to Zink's masterly subtlety and depth. (May)