Book Discussion Meeting, Saturday October 1, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

Mislaid by Nell Zink

Virginia Tidewater Region

Biography of Nell Zink (cribbed wholesale from Wikipedia)

Nell Zink  was born in 1964 in California and raised in rural Virginia. She attended Stuart Hall School and the College of William and Mary, where she earned a B.A. in Philosophy. In 1993, while living in West Philadelphia, Zink founded a zine called Animal Review, which ran until 1997 and "featured submissions and interviews with punk musicians about their pets, from King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp writing about his rabbit Beaton Bunnerius Bun, to Jon Langford, of British punk band The Mekons, discussing his loach fish." Zink has worked as a secretary at Colgate-Palmolive, and as a technical writer in Tel Aviv. Zink moved to Germany in May 2000, eventually earning a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Tübingen. She worked as a contributor for the daily newspaper in Tübingen, Schwäbisches Tagblatt, and later as a translator for Zeitenspiegel agency.

Zink has been married twice. On May 8, 1990, she married Benjamin Alexander Burck in a "very simple civil ceremony" at the Henrico County Courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. She later married the Israeli composer and poet Zohar Eitan.

After fifteen years spent writing fiction exclusively for a single pen pal, the Israeli postmodernist Avner Shats, Zink caught the attention of Jonathan Franzen with a "brazen" letter promoting the work of the German ornithologist Martin Schneider-Jacoby. The two writers began a correspondence, and Franzen was surprised to learn that Zink had no published literary work. Zink began to create work for Franzen.

In early 2012, Zink sent Franzen her collected manuscripts. Franzen tried unsuccessfully to interest publishers in her work. It was Franzen's agent who finally negotiated a six-figure publishing deal for Zink's Mislaid. Meanwhile, The Wallcreeper, "about a bird-loving American couple that moves to Europe and becomes, basically, eco-terrorists" (Keith Gessen), was published independently in the United States in 2014. Her third novel, Nicotine, is due out next month.

In the video below, Nell Zink discusses The Wallcreeper and Mislaid for a French television program. The interview is in English.

Only Tangentially Related

While researching material related to Mislaid for this blog, I heard Nell Zink say she grew up in "Tidewater Virginia." Apparently, this is not a town, but a region (which also includes parts of Maryland and North Carolina). My search also turned up this video of a sales pitch from an older Virginia gentleman, which is highlighted as an example of the Virginia Tidewater accent. I recognize this accent from my high school Home-Ec teacher, who was from Virginia. Note only that the accent is "non-rhotic," which means that r's are pronounced before but not after vowels, as is common for most southern accents, but "ou" is pronounced as "oo" as in some Canadian accents. This is what I remember as being most distinctive about my teacher's accent. Apparently, this accent is dying out. Embedding has been disabled for this video, so you'll have to click on the link if you're curious. Please note that this video is used simply as an example of the Virginia Tidewater accent, and no endorsement of buying swampland is implied.