January 6, 2025
Zink (Avalon) serves up an intriguing if slight ensemble piece set in upper-crust Berlin over a long evening. At 4:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in February, Demian gets ready for a dinner to celebrate his friend, author Masud al-Huzeil. The party, thrown by Princess Naema, is short on guests, so Demian invites his friends Livia, a restless single woman, and Toto, a publisher who is accompanied by his online date, Avianca (whom Toto secretly calls the Flake because it’s “shorter than ‘Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl’ ”), and Demian's 15-year-old trans daughter, Nicole. This unlikely crew is joined by Naema’s grandson Prince Radi, who flirts with Nicole before eventually turning his attention to another of the main characters. The promised Michelin-starred dinner disappoints (“beet salad with nasturtiums in a wet brioche”), and the group leaves in search of a more satisfying meal, romping through Berlin while discussing the current state of the city and its history. At its best, the novel allows for reflection on world issues through the characters’ perspectives, as when Livia wonders, “Was there life without money, or money unstained by deaths smelling of iron and sulfur?” Ultimately, though, the meandering narrative is more intellectual exercise than story. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Mar.)Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly stated that the novel takes place over 24 hours and confused the details of how the character Nicole gets invited to the party. The review has been further updated for clarity.
February 1, 2025
Zink, longlisted for the National Book Award for Mislaid, offers a zany short novel set in the upper reaches of Berlin society, in which a disparate group of people gather for a failed dinner party and set in motion connections and observations. Prepub Alert.
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Starred review from January 15, 2025
A motley assortment of the wealthy, the titled, and their attendants venture out into the Berlin night together. With novels likeAvalon (2022) andNicotine (2016), Zink has demonstrated her love for outsiders. Sometimes, she creates characters who have been ostracized by others. Sometimes she creates characters who have chosen their own exile. Often, it's difficult to tell which is which. While she typically writes about people living on society's precarious edges, here she presents a cast of characters who are--mostly--set apart from everybody else by extreme wealth and privilege. Demian is an "in-demand freelance art and architecture critic" whose cushy lifestyle--including his career--is subsidized by his wife, a structural engineer. His 15-year-old daughter, Nicole, is fumbling her way through both adolescence and transition. He's promised his friend Toto a "free Michelin-starred dinner in exchange for sitting through a one-hour literary-award ceremony." Livia, also Demian's friend, enjoys status and ease unmarked by her grandfather's role in World War II. Radi is an Arab prince born and raised in Switzerland. All of them gather--alongside a woman Toto met online and a cop who thinks Toto is trafficking Nicole--to honor a renowned author, but they separate and pair off and reconnect over the course of one night. As ever, Zink is funny in a way that requires careful observation and precision. She exposes her characters' weaknesses and shortcomings without being cruel or moralistic. For example, when Radi deadnames and misgenders Nicole, Zink lets Nicole handle it for herself. Overall, the night narrated here feels like the kind of time outside of time in which classical comedies take place--a liminal space in which characters experience transformations impossible in the everyday world. Here, some characters find each other, some find their way home, and some get a bit closer to finding themselves. Zink is one of the most humane writers we've got, and one of the best.
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February 1, 2025
Zink's latest novel, after Avalon (2022), follows a group of Berliners, expats, and royalty throughout the course of a rambunctious evening. Freelance art critic Demian is headed to a literary award ceremony and dinner for his longtime friend and author, Masud. The event's hostess, frustrated by Musad's seeming disinterest in the award, sends her grandson Radi, a prince, to the high society ceremony as proxy. Demian invites his publisher friend Toto, who subsequently brings along Demian's 15-year-old daughter, Nicole, after running into her following a misguided personal quest. Rounding out Demian's group is his beautiful friend Livia, with dog in tow, and Toto's plus-one whom he met online, the aloof Avianca. As the night progresses, Demian and his invitees, plus Radi, take off in search of sustenance, resulting in a winding escapade that involves a disastrous excursion at an underground dance club and catching the eye of a wayward undercover officer. Along the way, flirtations sour, connections shift, and characters ruminate on their lives, histories, and desires. Zink offers a wry look into personal proclivities and social circumstances and their consequences.
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February 1, 2025
In this witty novel set in Berlin in 2023, a prize for Arabic literature, funded by the widow of an emir, takes center stage. To fill empty seats at the ceremony, the award's recipient, Masud, extends an invitation and the promise of a free Michelin-starred dinner to his friend Demian, a German freelance art and architecture critic. In turn, Demian invites his 15-year-old, who is transitioning from Kilian to Nicole; Toto, a publisher originally from Texas who brings a date, Avianca; and Livia, a German socialite whose relatives have a Nazi past. Livia brings her poodle, Mephistopheles. Into the mix comes Klaus, a policeman trailing Nicole, whom he's convinced is an underage sex worker. There's also Prince Radi, the grandson of the award's founder; he is standing in for his grandmother at the ceremony. The novel follows the characters' transformations during the course of a single evening as they move through Berlin. VERDICT Zink (Avalon) cleverly and expertly combines hilarious scenes at the awards ceremony and the seven-course dinner with razor-sharp observations on culture, Americans in Europe, literature in the Middle East, sexuality, and the heavy hand of history.--Jacqueline Snider
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