Layover by Lisa Zeidner

Amazon.com
Writing about grief has been the death of many a novelist--artistically speaking, that is. Even the most earnest attempts to describe this taxing and tenacious emotion can dip into bathos and rhetorical wire-pulling. In Layover, however, Lisa Zeidner gives grief its due, and does so with such wit and high style that the reader's (occasional) tears are mixed with a kind of elation. Exactly what is Claire Newbold mourning? Mostly the death of her young son, which has taken place some time before the novel opens. In response, she's withdrawn from her husband (a no-less-shattered surgeon) and her job (a sales rep for a medical-supplies company), allowing herself just the faintest purchase on her old existence: "Right now, I realize, I was just floating. Trying to float. Skimming over my life, letting life tickle my feet. I had no plans to glide off entirely." Gliding off entirely, however, is exactly what she does after learning of a single infidelity on her husband's part. In the middle of a business trip she cuts off all contact with home and lurches into a sex-and-self-discovery spree.

Sneaking in and out of hotel rooms without registering--which, let's face it, is the final eradication of identity for any business traveler--Claire first seduces an 18-year-old, then manages to get in bed with the boy's father. Zeidner records these trysts with superb, hypersensitive relish, finding fresh ways to write about that topic, too. "Sex is a story you know the ending of," she notes. "More or less the same story with the same ending, every time. Yet we want to keep hearing it, the way a child listens to a fairy tale, vigilant for variation." Still, Layover is anything but a bedroom farce. As Claire bounces between erotic encounters, she is unraveling before our eyes, and Zeidner's real subject turns out to be not body but soul:

I'd discovered grief's trade secret: once you burrow that deep into yourself, you simply have a better nose for pain. Truth is, hardly anyone is happy. Not even the people with nothing wrong. They're all hunkered down in the bunker of self, in self's fragile failure.
There is so much to praise in Layover that it's hard to know where to start, or to stop. It's diabolically funny, deeply intelligent, and surely the best work of hotel- or motel-room anthropology since Humbert Humbert did his cross-country trek. At one point, however, Claire ascribes a kind of clairvoyance to herself: she can see into people, she claims, while their souls "glow phosphorescent, as if X-rayed by the baggage-check machine." Zeidner has a similar, semi-radiant insight into human behavior--and hers, of course, is anything but a delusion.

Dr. Holleman Booksellers

contact

Amazon.com Hot 100
The 100 titles Amazon.com customers couldn't live without in the last 24 hours. Updated hourly.

Amazon.com Hot 100
Save up to 30% on the 100 bestselling music CD's at Amazon.com. Updated hourly.

Music Essentials

Our recommendations for the best CD's from the best artists.
Whether you're thinking of exploring an unfamiliar style or already building a focused collection, our Essentials pages can streamline your musical search. From alternative music to zydeco, bebop to hip-hop, the Essentials will lead you to the hundreds of artists and thousands of recordings that matter.

Amazon.com is pleased to have Dr. Holleman Booksellers in the family of Amazon.com associates. We've agreed to ship products and provide customer service for orders we receive through special links on Dr. Holleman Booksellers. Amazon.com associates list selected books and music in an editorial context that helps you make the right choice. We encourage you to shop at Dr. Holleman Booksellers often to see what new items they've selected for you. Thank you for shopping with an amazon.com associate. Sincerely, Jeff Bezos, President Amazon.com