In January, we had a good-sized group to discuss "Midlaid" by Nell Zink at The LGBT Center in NYC. Boy, was this a divisive book for the group but I think even those of us who didn't care for it liked it more after some discussion.



The novel starts off with a bang. The first two chapters whiz right through the set-up of a sexual dalliance between Lee (a gay professor) and Peggy (his lesbian student), an ill-advised marriage, the subsequent poorly explained second child, and Peggy leaving with the youngest child, Mickey, who --assisted by a stolen birth certificate-- she raises as a Black person.



The set-up is fast and furious but one reader suggested that the novel might be called "Derailed," another punny title along side "Mislaid," since the plot and characters quickly get derailed. It's supposed to be humorous with some specific satire (and there are some quick chuckles) but the dark comedy really isn't very funny and the set-ups regularly miss the mark.



But a few readers really liked it. They enjoyed the light humor, the depraved situations, and the absurdist plot that spins out of control in completely unexpected ways. Once you accept that (despite the serious themes) it's not a significant or weighty novel, it's easy to enjoy the wacky goings-on.



More serious complaints:



-- Too choppy. Maybe it's supposed to be picaresque (a la Candide or Robert Rodi, who wrote the silly comedies "Closet Case" and "Kept Boy," among many others) or full of interesting connections (like Dickens) but it mostly just seems like a patchwork.



-- Unbelievable characters. The LGBT characters are stereotypes without much "gay" or "lesbian" background. They're just not believable. We determined that Zink is straight and she rather misses the mark in drawing her gay and lesbian characters. It's supposed to be satire, but that's not an excuse to create such shallow characters, including the straight characters such as the straight son in the fraternity, the clueless mothers in the PTA, and the drug-dealing Native American.



There's a pretty long tradition of straight writers being rewarded for writing weak and stereotyped LGBT characters and this seems to be another example. The list of awards and good reviews that fill the front pages of the paperback version just don't seem justified by these characters.



-- Unsatisfying ending. It all culminates in a cartoon-style pile-up of stereotyped characters and poorly motivated decisions, and then ends with a lot of talk (A LOT OF TALK) and a resolution that doesn't seem very likely.



The uptake: Read it as a very pleasant piece of fluff. It's fun, there are some witty lines, but many of us just didn't find it very funny or very interesting.