Hefty advances, millennial prudishness, her pen pal Jonathan Franzen—no subject is off-limits for the belated literary upstart.
NELL ZINK HAS AN enviable problem. “I’ve been working hard to find ways to spend money,” she told me a few months ago over risotto in Princeton, New Jersey. Raised in Virginia and living in Germany, the suddenly celebrated 52-year-old novelist had been invited to give her only Stateside reading in the break between her second novel, Mislaid (longlisted for the National Book Award), and her third, Nicotine, which is out this week. Princeton was a pretty good place to spend Ecco’s $425,000 advance. “I blew a hundred bucks at Lululemon”—she wore a stretchy gray shirt with cutouts for the thumbs—“and like 60 bucks on books”—Elif Batuman’s The Possessed, Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class—“and if I did that every day, let me think …” It would have taken seven years to blow it all on paperbacks and athleisure.
In addition to the advance for Nicotine, a careening VW-van ride of a novel occupied by a network of young anarchist squatters in Jersey City, Ecco paid another $25,000 to publish an early pair of novellas under the title Private Novelist (also out this month). Zink got only a $300 advance for her widely praised debut, The Wallcreeper, two short years ago. Most writers are loath to discuss their salaries; Zink clearly isn’t among them.
Denne historien er fra October 3-16, 2016-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra October 3-16, 2016-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Enchanting and Exhausting
Wicked makes a charming but bloated film.
Nicole Kidman Lets Loose
She's having a grand old time playing wealthy matriarchs on the verge of blowing their lives up.
How Mike Myers Makes His Own Reality
Directing him in Austin Powers taught me what it means to be really, truly funny.
The Art of Surrender
Four decades into his career, Willem Dafoe is more curious about his craft than ever.
The Big Macher Restaurant Is Back
ON A WARM NIGHT in October, a red carpet ran down a length of East 26th Street.
Showing Its Age
Borgo displays a confidence that can he only from experience.
Keeping It Simple on Lower Fifth
Jack Ceglic and Manuel Fernandez-Casteleiro's apartment is full of stories but not distractions.
REASON TO LOVE NEW YORK
THERE'S NOT MUCH in New York that has staying power. Every other day, a new scandal outscandals whatever we were just scandalized by; every few years, a hotter, scarier downtown set emerges; the yoga studio up the block from your apartment that used to be a coffee shop has now become a hybrid drug front and yarn store.
Disunion: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
A Rift in the Family My in-laws gave me a book by a eugenicist. Our relationship is over.
Gwen Whiting
Two years after a mass recall and a bacterial outbreak, the founder of the Laundress is on cleanup duty.
