A Brilliant Novel in the Works

Zalkow's debut novel is having an out-of-body experience: it is a first-person account of an anxious Jewish writer named Yuvi struggling to complete his debut novel, and worrying incessantly about his floundering marriage. At the same time, Yuvi's brother-in-law, Joel, nicknamed Shmendrik, is suffering from severe colitis and requires intermittent hospitalization. Throughout the book, short italicized sections disrupt the already disjointed narrative; these sketches include childhood memories, science fictions set on Uranus, and conversations between Yuvi and his editor. The novel is obtrusively metafictional; one of the minor characters even refers to himself as an "ethnic plot device." Yet the book is not so much about Yuvi writing as it is about Yuvi's inability to write. His wife exclaims, "No wonder you have no plot in your novel! You get fixated on the smallest things and can't move forward." And she's right; bemoaning plotlessness doesn't lead to an engaging plot. The incessantly ironic, self-reflexive Yuvi also fails to provide a compelling centerpiece for the narrative%E2%80%94he's an unsympathetic and immature protagonist, and he never manages to overcome his angst. Instead, he stresses over negative reviews and frets that "What I'm writing these days is bupkis." Unfortunately for Zalkow, bupkis comes of bupkis. (Aug.)