Many authors have tried — and few truly succeeded — to write an all-encompassing ‘great’ American novel. I would put Doxology into the also-ran category. It's not on a par with Franzen (The Corrections, especially), and others like Groff and Stanley Robinson seem to have more contemporary resonance. That said, Doxology is far from a bad novel, and it kept me mostly sustained over its 400-plus pages. Zink began her career as a music critic, and it seems that she writes with more passion in this respect than many others. I thought that she was perhaps strongest on contemporary events regarding 9/11 and the emergence of Trump; weaker on the Gulf Wars and the credit crisis. The death of the hitherto principal protagonist from an accidental heroin overdose on 9/11 was a moment of literary genius. I felt Flora, perhaps the most developed of the characters, with her realization of how the world ‘really’ works (emotion over reason), as the leading revealing insight. Much to like, but good rather than great, seven out of ten.
By Nell Zink