In 'Doxology,' The Comedy Is Never Quite In Tune
Nell Zink is a very funny writer, but the comedy never quite works in her new novel, which follows two aging punks and their daughter, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the '80s to D.C. today.
During the 2016 election, I worked in events at Politics and Prose, one of Washington, D.C.'s best-beloved bookstores. My office shared a wall with Comet Ping Pong, a similarly beloved pizza restaurant that became the target of the . The conspiracy, which posited Democratic Party higher-ups trafficking children for sex beneath Comet's concrete floors, was conceptually ludicrous. It was also homophobic, viciously cruel, and — even before an armed vigilante showed up to "self-investigate" — too frightening to be funny. Pizzagate taught me the difference between absurdity and humor., in which Pizzagate makes a brief appearance.
