Mislaid

A Novel

By: Nell Zink

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.

Worried that Lee will have her committed for her erratic behavior, Peggy goes underground, adopting an African-American persona for her and her daughter. They squat in a house in an African-American settlement, eventually moving to a housing project where no one questions their true racial identities.

As Peggy and Lee's children grow up, they must contend with diverse emotional issues: Byrdie must deal with his father's compulsive honesty while Karen struggles with her mother's lies - she knows neither her real age nor that she is white nor that she has any other family.

Years later a minority scholarship lands Karen at the University of Virginia, where Byrdie is in his senior year. Eventually the long-lost sibling will go, setting off a series of misunderstandings and culminating in a comedic finale worthy of Shakespeare.

©2015 Nell Zink (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

bad editing

the narrator is great, but there are maybe a dozen "lags" where there's a few-second pause, then the narration picks back up a few seconds before the pause. done kind of editing problem.

Disappointing

Was sold on Zink myth -- as yet undiscovered genius with life so far from ordinary her books could only reflect something never before seen. But I got a very novelly novel filled with novel things, a mashup of collegiate novel and the Secret Life of Bees thing where a white woman writes about being raised black in the south, with politics that presented themselves as different but ultimately weren't. Maybe it was a joke about these stories/politics I didn't get. I would recommend to a book club for white Christian moms or something, to read after something about an Indian grandmother's magical relationship w spices or a cancer memoir.

Had Hoped for More

Such a shame, I was really ready to love this book. Some glowing reviews, an interesting premise, well written, so...what's not to like? Well, I found myself rather bored and overall disappointed that I was not enjoying this book. It was so unremarkable that I can't even remember big pieces of the story shortly after having listened to it.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Sexual orientation, and what became known as LBGT rights, is a hotly debated issue in America. Four rulings between 1996 and 2015 changed the rights of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. The Supreme Court invalidated a state law banning protected class recognition based on homosexuality; invalidated sodomy laws nationwide, denied the validity of the “Defense of Marriage Act”, and made same-sex marriage legal in America.

Nell Zink deftly and intelligently covers a host of subjects that warrant the time it takes for the public to read or listen to “Mislaid”. It provides a better understanding of the LGBT community. It illustrates how much more difficult it is for an American woman than an American man to raise a child on their own.

Way better than I expected

This was a riveting story about the South, literary criticism, coming out as gay, racism, poverty, all within the prism of a uniquely and interestingly screwed up family. I couldn't put it down.

Hilarious and well read

I really enjoyed listening to this book. I think it would have held my attention on the page but the narrator knocked the Virginian accents out of the park (ironically since I hated Cassandra Campbell's reading of The Woman Upstairs.)
I can't tell you why I cared about anyone specifically in the book but it was compelling as all hell.

Blessedly short listen!

In retrospect - I can’t remember why I choose this book. It winds lazily between characters and locales that are confusing enough that I found it particularly difficult to stay engaged with them.

I cannot recommend it.

Hmmm...still perplexed.

I think this book was really interesting, but lacked some development of key cultural components. It was really interesting overall, original in its content but could be considered genuinely offensive in how superficial the racial portions of the story are handled. I am not sure what to think about this...still.

Smart, Funny Novel

Excellent, fun and entertaining book whose depth creeps up on you in the best possible ways. Nell Zink is a brilliant writer who is smart enough to poke fun at her own brilliance.

Irreverent one liners

Heavy on hysterical, irreverent one-liners, light on plot and emotional depth. Entertaining but flawed.