In the aftermath, Flora comes of age, navigating a charged political landscape and discovering a love of the natural world. On September 11, 2001, the city’s unfathomable devastation coincides with a shattering personal loss for the trio.

As the ‘90s wane, the three friends share in one another’s successes, working together to elevate Joe’s superstardom and raise baby Flora. Struggling to scrape together enough cash and musical talent to make it, they are waylaid by surprising arrivals-a daughter for Pam and Daniel, a solo hit single for Joe. Pam, Daniel, and Joe might be the worst punk band on the Lower East Side. Two generations of an American family come of age-one before 9/11, one after-in this moving and original novel from the “intellectually restless, uniquely funny” ( New York Times Book Review) mind of Nell Zink It flows with a narrative spin only the singular Zink could pull off-including both authentic and fictional versions of characters from Shats’s life and work such as the author herself.Ī fast-moving portrait of expat artists, authors, and academics on fellowships at the Villa Romana in Florence, European Story for Avner Shats centers on a trio of three indelible characters: an Israeli writer vaguely reminiscent of Shats, a German specialist in ancient lint, and a beautiful and fraudulent Russian performance artist.ĭemonstrating the hallmarks of Zink’s unique talent, Private Novelist is an intimate look into this acclaimed novelist’s early work that will please her coterie of admirers and further burnish her lustrous reputation.Named a Best Book of the Year by: The New York Times * New York Magazine * Lit Hub * TIME * O, the Oprah Magazine * Good Housekeeping Sailing Towards the Sunset by Avner Shats is Zink’s faux-translation of Shats’s 1998 novel Lashut El Hashkia ('Sailing Towards the Sunset').

Now, this tongue-in-cheek homage is available to Nell’s growing readership for the first time, accompanied by a second dazzling and imaginative work that breathes-at Shats’s request-the perfumed air of the Old Europe and stars a figure very much like Shats. Unable to read his Hebrew, she was forced to start from scratch. Years ago, Nell Zink resolved to write a book for her friend, the Israeli novelist Avner Shats, that would mirror his remarkable style.

From the brilliant and incisive author of Mislaid-'a writer of extraordinary talent and range' (Jonathan Franzen) whose 'capacity for inventions is immense' (BookForum)-comes a new collection of her earliest work: two wildly funny novellas ( Sailing Towards the Sunset by Avner Shats and European Story for Avner Shats) available in one compact volume.

Private Novelist by Nell Zink