false 366331 3 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 <I>Layover</I>, 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 In response, she's withdrawn from her husband (a no-less-shattered surgeon) and her job (a sales rep for a medical-supplies company), allowing herself just the faintest purchase on her old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.<p> 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 <I>that</I> 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, <I>Layover</I> 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: <blockquote> I'd discovered grief's trade secret: once you burrow that deep into yourself, you simply have a better nose for pain. Truth is, <I>hardly anyone is happy</I>. Not even the people with nothing wrong. They're all hunkered down in the bunker of self, in self's fragile failure. </blockquote> There is so much to praise in <I>Layover</I> 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 <I>into</I> 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. <I>--James Marcus</I> 1760779 1 6 1999 Layover total:87|5:1|4:22|3:38|2:16|1:10| 87 249 119 13 4 0 false false Fri Nov 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 14:38:37 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 16:32:10 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Mon May 25 18:36:23 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 18:44:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 22:13:43 -0800 2009 Sat Apr 18 17:29:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sun Dec 02 17:36:08 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 02 17:36:44 -0800 2007
Layover is about Clai...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Dec 21 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 06:52:48 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 07:45:26 -0800 2008 1 0 0 false false Wed Nov 19 20:14:33 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 20:14:51 -0800 2008 1 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Feb 07 06:47:34 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 06:47:57 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Fri Jun 22 12:42:23 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 22 12:42:23 -0700 2007 layover turned out to be quite the surprisingly satisfying erotic thriller, as well as a great meditation on loneliness, obsession, and family relationships. and dirty, too -- ooh, man, is it dirty. a great fast...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu May 31 08:18:08 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 19 09:32:17 -0700 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat Sep 20 11:46:35 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 11:47:14 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sat Sep 06 21:47:13 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 06 21:47:45 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 04 10:16:16 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 14 16:23:57 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Sep 11 20:15:58 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 11 20:16:05 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Nov 02 09:55:44 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 02 09:55:44 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Sun Oct 04 17:04:32 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 17:04:32 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Sep 04 08:20:09 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 09:23:08 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 08:20:09 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Aug 12 16:33:31 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 16:33:40 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jul 07 08:45:11 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 08:45:11 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Jul 06 19:23:37 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 19:23:37 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Jul 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 23 07:45:23 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 11:45:02 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=366331