Mislaid - Nell Zink

'Nell Zink is a writer of extraordinary talent and range. Her work insistently raises the possibility that the world is larger and stranger than the world you think you know.' Jonathan Franzen

Startlingly radical, dazzlingly witty, unlike anything that has come before - a box set containing the two most exciting novels published this year.

MISLAID

Virginia, 1966. The motionless deeps of the lake outside Stillwater College are being ruffled. Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, is determinedly fondling Peggy, an ingnue freshman with literary pretensions, in his canoe. So begins a long affair but the two are mismatched from the start.

The story that follows rocks the boat in every sense. Nell Zink's hugely entertaining, totally unique Mislaid explodes the nuclear family and topples every foundation of identity - black and white, gay and straight, "normal" and very very strange.

THE WALLCREEPER

Interlaken, Berne, 21st century. Several things happen after the car hits the rock. Tiff ceases to be pregnant. Stephen captures, like, the most wonderful bird - fleet, stealthy, and beautiful - a real "lifer". And the wallcreeper, the wallcreeper says "twee".

The Wallcreeper is nothing more than a portrait of marriage, complete with all its requisite highs and lows: drugs, dubstep, small chores, anal sex, eco-terrorism, birding, breeding and feeding.