THENEWYORKER, SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 63
What happens to a satirist who sees her darkest visions made real?
BOOKS
BE THE CHANGE
Activism and cynicism in Nell Zink’s “Doxology.”BY MADELEINE SCHWARTZ
ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIRE MERCHLINSKY
A
t what point did it no longer seem
possible to satirize the world we live
in? Was it when the Commander-in-Chief
called himself a “very stable genius”? The
“covfefe” tweet? Or the news alerts that
seem to make the very idea of jokes un-
serious or unseemly? Satire reveals truth
through exaggeration. The task becomes
more difficult when everyone agrees that
reality has gone too far.
The funny, ravenous, and strange
novels of Nell Zink look at American
culture from the fringes, following ac-
tivists and misfits as they contend with
the absurdities of the modern world.
Her first book, “The Wallcreeper,” tells
the story of a woman who leaves her
husband to commit ecoterrorism while
taking on a string of deadbeat lovers. In
“Mislaid,” a white lesbian passes as black
in order to get away from her gay hus-
band. “Nicotine” follows squatters in
New Jersey whose homes are divided
by identitarian interests, such as femi-
nism, indigenous rights, and smoking.
Zink’s satires are not restrained by
the conventions of social politeness or
narrative structure. Characters uncover
secrets only to be killed off; they get
pregnant, married, and separated within
a few dozen fervent pages. The most
consistent quality of her books is a de-
sire to flout rules. One plot hinges on
buckets of feces; another features P.T.A.
moms learning about Michel Foucault’s
thoughts on sex. This satire is especiallyangled at those who want to turn the
margins into a movement. “Why exactly
20-somethings are considered so vital
to protest movements, I never figured
out, seeing as how they never vote and
have no money,” a character in “The Wall-
creeper” reflects. The tenants’-rights ac-
tivists in “Nicotine” are as concerned
about their own living standards as they
are about any universal right to hous-
ing. “You want to control the left,” an-
other character says, “offer it cheap rent.”
It’s exciting and cool to be part of a group
that’s trying to change the world, the
novels suggest. But don’t forget: those
attempts usually go nowhere.
Zink knows the fringe herself. She
spent the first decades of her career
writing for an audience of one at a time,
seemingly unconcerned by whether her
work reached a broader public. Born in
Virginia, she lived abroad in Israel and
then in Germany, working as a bricklayer
and as a secretary, among other jobs.
The novels she wrote took the form
of e-mails to friends. The recipient of
one such e-mail was Jonathan Franzen,
who helped her publish her first novel,
with a small feminist press, for a three-
hundred-dollar advance.
Since then, the novels have become
sleeker, and the presses larger. And, in
a testament to her skill, time has seen
much of Zink’s satire confirmed by the
news. Ecoterrorism loses the aura of ab-
surdity when every month brings a new
estimate of the coming death toll from
our melting ice caps. Shortly after Zink
published a novel about a white woman
passing as black, Rachel Dolezal, a Wash-
ington State N.A.A.C.P. chapter pres-
ident, revealed that she was born white
but had built a career passing as Afri-
can-American. These revelations point
to Zink’s sharp eye and sense of timing.
But they also raise the stakes. What
happens to a satirist who sees her dark-
est visions made real?W
hen we first meet Pam Bailey and
Daniel Svoboda, in “Doxology”
(Ecco), Zink’s newest novel, they are nav-
igating familiar Zink territory, the grungy
world of young people, making plans and
art. It’s New York in the late eighties, and
both Pam and Daniel have moved to the
city to escape families that did not en-
courage creative expression (Beltway
Protestants and Midwestern evangelicals,