I’m usually someone that needs a good plot to help drive the story. This book was definitely lacking in that - to the point where it was difficult for me to read at all. Maybe some people will like this writer’s storytelling style or character development, but this just didn’t work for me at all. I’m not likely to seek out her writing in the future.

Nell Zink is full of wit and has quite a keen turn of phrase throughout Doxology. Ultimately, the story of Pam, Daniel, Joe, and later Flora, just wasn't for me. The two halves were not equally compelling and I would have a hard time recommending this, as compared to her other works.

This is the story of a family that stretches from the Gulf War to the Trump administration, from the coming of age of gen x to the coming of age of millennials, from the days when music was our passion to our current obsession with politics. A good read for those trying to remember how we got here from there.

An interesting and compelling read. I was consumed by this book. Very happy to have gotten an ARC for review.

DOXOLOGY
Nell Zink
Ecco; 416 pp.; 2019


My Protestant upbringing recalls the part of the church service when the organist would start to play a serious, rumbling passage and everyone would rise, knowingly, to sing the short song of praise known as the Doxology. It’s not clear whether Nell Zink’s new outing is a similar kind of ritual — for one, it isn’t short.

There may be a similar degree of seriousness in “Doxology”, although it’s dedicated to a cat. I have always thought the earlier books Zink has written —especially her first, “The Wallcreeper”, which centers on birdwatching, Germany, and general scatteredness — put the so-called ‘fun back in dysfunction’, and I have approved heartily. Here there may be loftier ambition: this story spans a lot of our recent miasma-like past, following an extended family of New York and D.C.-based creative class folks from the grunge-filled 90’s on the Lower East Side, through 9/11, on into the new millennium, and all the way past the what-to-make-of-it election of 2016. Your narration here is omniscient — it veers from one character to another. One is a Kurt Cobain type genius music star, who’s shockingly killed off by an overdose. We also spend time with his manager and his best friend — the two are married. And perhaps above all, though this is subject to debate, the most central player is a woman named Flora. She is born to the couple mentioned above, and we track with her, intermittently, from precocious childhood all the way to her own out-of-wedlock motherhood — there is a triangle-like situation — in a not far from now future in Washington, where some kind of airborne toxic event is threatening the capital.

So there is a vast, aspiring to epic, superstructure contained in this undertaking — it’s a curious take on the times that have befallen us. As usual, Zink peppers her story with zingers and soundbites that are at least hoots, and are sometimes glorious. The funny part about “Doxology” though, is that while you are being escorted past all the momentous doings of the era it’s chronicling, you find yourself longing for less, and not more. I’m not sure who I want to see document our recent past — I just don’t think it’s Nell Zink. (Maybe not Jonathan Franzen, her reported mentor, either.) She’s so fabulous with being an eccentric mindset, and I wish she would stay in that mode — here she’s stretching to build a convincing plot, with romantic and political complications — the superstructure isn’t always that convincing. Your mileage may vary; you in all likelihood will not be bored.


(DREW HART is from Santa Barbara, California and does not believe in star ratings)

A lot of ideas are pumped into this novel, and symbolism as well. Look at the title of the book; Doxology: a liturgical formula of praise to God. Then you have the last name of Svoboda which is a political party in the Ukrainian and also means "freedom". Anyway, undertones abound in this book. At first the art project is music, then it shifts and perhaps the daughter is the ultimate project. Yet she doesn't live her life like theirs.

There's a lot to like and enjoy in this book, the focus on music then on climate change and resting on politics, particularly the Greens. Yet...I think it's the writing style that gets me, makes me reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace this book. I'm not a fan of the writing style. The sentences are short and clipped, and somehow it reminds me of Neal Stephenson. It feels more like a bunch telling and not much showing. I think there's a lot missing, that could have made it better.

Having not been a fan of Nicotine, I should've been leery. However, the blurb sounded so interesting I couldn't resist. Unfortunately, this novel was just as meandering and all over the place as Zell's other works. The concept sounds good in theory. However, the execution was a taking on of too much to tackle.

I loved Zink’s book, MISLAID so much that I waited to read this until my birthday, as a special treat. I enjoyed the book, but on many levels, found it two separate novels. First, we have the story of Joe, Pam and Daniel. They were hippie musicians, and great friends, during the years of the ascendancy of the East Village. It is a birth, of daughter Flora, and a death that cause the story to transition to a novel about Progressive concerns, embodied by daughter Flora.

Zink uses the events of 9/11 to act as the catalyst and move the focus to very modern concerns about the politics of climate. Flora embodies the modern, young, thoughtful American woman. The author is able to communicate many different kinds of love and draw the reader into the complications of friendship and poor choices. She also gives us great hope, which I loved since I felt so close to the characters.

A lovely read, especially for those of us who lived through New York during the years that encompassed the tragedy of the World Trade Center bombing.

Thank you Netgalley for the privilege of reading another novel by Nell Zink.