Nell Zink's new novel is full of talk but ultimately doesn't say much

Boston Globe

20-03-2025

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Radi presumes that both Nicole and Avianca are prostitutes and begins plying them with drinks in the hotel lounge, while Demian, forgoing any parental reaction to his daughter's situation, heads to the conference room with Toto and Livia for the award presentation. 'Sister Europe' makes clear early on that there will be no real consequences for anything that occurs, so the stakes are vanishingly low as the group progresses from the award's ceremony to dinner, which Radi and Nicole have in private, to a walk through the park and an implausible conclusion at Livia's home.
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It's hard not to feel for Nicole, who wrestles with intense and unfamiliar feelings among these largely insensate and predatory adults. Though Radi, who deadnames and mocks Nicole while trying to sleep with her, is a privileged cad, Toto is the complete aggravating package, both bigoted and vacuous. He loves that German women don't 'have a word for 'one-night stand,' 'hookup,' or even 'mistake,'' because it's easier to have meaningless sex with the 20-something 'child brides' he fancies. He informs Demian that his daughter is 'not quite ready for prime time' but if Radi 'turns her gay, [his] nightmare would be over.' He asserts that 'Communists are the only people on the planet who care about literature,' drolly quips that 'beef is trans' because 'they castrate them and put estrogen in the feed,' and observes that 'before they got burger joints in Germany, it was No Fat Chicks country.'
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It's hard to pinpoint the novel's intended audience, though Zink, who grew up in Virginia before settling in Germany in 2000, seems to aim for both sides of the Atlantic as texted conversations in German are parenthetically translated to English and one of Livia's ex-husbands is described as 'pushing two meters at six foot six.' And while some of the group detours to Burger King at one point, most of the novel's touchstones are far more elevated, with shoutouts to 'Thorstein Veblen's concept of pecuniary respectability' and the closing sentence of Claude Lévi-Strauss's 'Tristes Tropique.' The narrative has baffling moments, as when we check in with the dog: 'Fisti, although barefoot, was almost entirely covered with hair, and no one present knew what he was feeling.' As the evening wears on, the prose overheats, reaching its apex perhaps when Radi feels 'an arrow of soon-to-be-attempted friendship launch toward Demian from the center of his heart.'
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Characters in 'Sister Europe' express anti-Muslim and anti-trans sentiments, joke about refugees in tents, and have myopic discussions about everything from Ukraine to dating apps to Nazism. None of these issues are treated with any real perspicacity, which feels entirely realistic, and it's easy to imagine the novel being set in Washington, D.C., or London or any one of scores of other locations. But while fiction does not need to teach a lesson or even make a point, satire — which presumably this novel is aiming for — is more effective leavened with humor or drama, both of which are in short supply here. Perhaps Demian offers the best summation of 'Sister Europe' near its conclusion, when he says, 'The evening was beginning to assume mythical dimensions in his mind as one of the most irretrievably stupid nights of his life.'
SISTER EUROPE
By Nell Zink
Knopf, 208 pages, $28
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Cory Oldweiler is a freelance writer.