Nell Zink

The story moved quickly, made me laugh, and I could empathize with the characters foreign dislocation. I relished the metaphors: "we were drinking piña coladas and watching the coots sweep the water with bits of reed held in their bills they way they do, like brownie scouts sweeping out a parish hall, inept and squeaking, and the DJ had put on Horace Andy ("Skylarking")." Or "I slunk out like a joker-slash-thief with my collar up and my hat pulled past my eyebrows" when she quits her job at the nightclub ticket window. Her sister who works as a bikini barista in Tukwila had me of course, knowing Tukwila: "Tukwila, in my opinion, was the trap in the drain..Easterners hear 'coffee culture' and think of Vienna, not longshoremen idling their pickups at a drive-through." And Stephen's mother "who was always wearing scarves and big pants, like 'flowing garments,' and slept with Paul from Peter, Paul and Mary." Or the pitiful bar where Elvis takes them dancing is vividly depicted as "garbage in, garbage out" in terms of imprints on the human brain "turning to dust and slowly wafting a thin layer of grime on to every other object in your brain....[needing] to scrape the gunk off" Haven't you ever felt like that? Sometimes my own brain needs a thorough vacuuming particularly after visiting a sordid dance club like that., But on behalf of my friends who love a plot and thrive on characterization, this is not their book. Stephen is a cipher with an irratic on again/off again desire to have a child and count birds, but he's not much of a character, in fact, most of the characters are funny but thin until they get environmental (or just mental?). Tiffany and her sister join the men in strenuous bed hopping, as if "miming reproductive acts were my sole aim in life," in love, out of love. But as a satirical look at men, women, marriage, multinationals, environmentalists, birdwatchers and German or Croatian or Macedonian or Albanian"anarcho-sensualist renegade(s)," it is perfectly tuned. I had a good time.
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