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Doxology : a novel
2019
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Library Journal Review
A rebellious girl from an upper-middle-class Washington, DC, family and the son of Evangelical Christians from rural Wisconsin meet in New York's underground music scene in the early 1990s. While trying to start a record label and promote the career of eccentric musician Joe Harris, Pam becomes pregnant, and she and Daniel marry and live in a small apartment on the Lower East Side with their daughter, Flora. Following 9/11, they temporarily flee New York, and Flora grows up moving between her grandparents' stable DC home and her parents' Bohemian existence. We follow Flora into the present day as her concern for the environment leads her first to pursue a career in soil chemistry and then to work as a Green Party campaign staffer during the national 2016 election. VERDICT Here, Zink (Mislaid) seems to follow her characters where they want to go rather than imposing an orchestrated plot on them. Thus, what starts as a gritty "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" novel turns into a family drama about generational conflict, then a story about our current sociopolitical moment. For these engaging characters, the attempt to find meaning and purpose is often detoured when the universe has other plans. [See Prepub Alert, 2/18/19/.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Publishers Weekly Review
Beginning in the early days of the 1990s and moving through the years to the 2016 election, Zink's solid fourth novel (after Nicotine) follows the exploits of the members of a short-lived New York City punk band. Pam and Daniel have a daughter, Flora, before their careers can even begin to take off; meanwhile, Joe, the singer, has a breakthrough when he writes an unexpected hit single. As his fame grows, Pam and Daniel focus on raising Flora. On 9/11, everything changes, not just because of the attacks, but also because of an unexpected death that occurs on the same day. The second half of the book focuses more on Flora's coming-of-age as she, among other things, becomes a campaign staffer for Jill Stein. As time passes, Zink infuses the novel with as many period details as possible (for instance, "bricklike cell phones"), but the repeated intrusion of the narrator explaining the political and cultural developments during the last 30 years becomes a bit overbearing and, worse, mostly unnecessary. Still, Zink's gifts for characterization and richly evoked periods and places are on display throughout. Zink's longest novel is her most ambitious and perhaps her most effective. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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