Star of Lisa Zeidner's fourth novel is "fierce, funny and falling apart"
Archived article from Sep 24, 1999
By Caroline Yount
Page 2 of 3
"Layover" isn't so much a departure from Zeidner's other novels as a maturation. "All the novels have an embedded cultural commentary," Zeidner observes. "But Claire is more engaging; her voice has a stronger thrust. She's more of a grown-up."
As the Times reviewer noted, "On the surface, it may seem that Claire's voyage is a simple sexual one, when in fact it's a story of possibilities: what's left in the world after death?"
Zeidner tends to create main characters close to her own age. In her first novel, "Customs" -- which she calls "a psychological parable about object loss, constructed like a fairy tale" -- the heroine was 23. The author was 26.
Two years later, the prolific Zeidner released her second novel, "Alexandra Freed." In between the two novels, she published a collection of poems, "Talking Cure." Another book of poetry, "Pocket Sundial," which won the 1988 Brittingham Prize in Poetry, and another novel, "Limited Partnerships," followed.
Zeidner is now in her 40s, as is her latest protagonist. She lives in a restored Victorian home in Haddonfield with husband John Lafont, an architect, and eight-year-old son, Nicolas. Currently, she is completing a collection of short stories and beginning work on a fifth novel with the help of an $8,000 fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts.
In a recent essay for Amazon.com, Zeidner explained what she looks for in a good book. "Really good fiction doesn't want to be picked apart," she wrote. "You read it as you float into, or are shocked out of, a dream. And ideally, you feel as involved with the characters -- as taken over by them -- as if you were dreaming them yourself."
Based on reactions from many critics and readers, "Layover" -- and Zeidner -- accomplishes just that.
Advice for her teen lover's mother The following scene from "Layover" takes place in Philly's own Le Bec Fin. Claire has wangled a dinner invitation and finds herself at the exclusive French restaurant with her young lover and his miserable, divorced mother, Marjorie. She decides to set the woman straight:
"Mar. May I offer a piece of advice? As a still-married woman? If what you want, more than anything in the world, is to be tenderly held, I can tell you that you're going about it the wrong way. Entirely the wrong way. ... Certainly you must know that. ... Talking so much is one thing -- Christ, read Cosmo. But the neediness! It's stultifying! Where do you expect to get, presenting yourself like this? If you think the problem is your body -- your thighs, your wrinkles -- then work on your body. Lift weights. Do some low-rep sets two, three times a week. Build bone density. Build confidence. Exercise is good. But come on! Your gestures! They're anti-sexy. Start with stillness. ... Yoga -- that's what I recommend for you. ... Learn how to be slack. Then maybe you can start to uncoil your mind, which is so knotted-up you can't hope to feel love, or peace, or just about anything else but futile anxiety."
Learning to write
For the past 13 years, Lisa Zeidner has run two writers' conferences at the Camden campus: a free, daylong intensive program of workshops and readings held each spring and co-sponsored by the New Jersey Arts Council, and a weeklong summer conference. The summer version can be taken for undergraduate or graduate credit. At both, accomplished authors, such as Toni Morrison, Jane Smiley and Tobias Wolff -- to name a few former participants -- provide guidance to aspiring writers. These hopeful poets, novelists and essayists have the chance to receive an evaluation of their writing from the guest authors.
"The conference offers a terrific opportunity," says Karin Phillips, community affairs reporter at KYW radio in Philadelphia and a graduate of the master's program in English on the Camden campus. "The authors were accessible and helpful, and I got lots of great criticism. It brought me back to creative writing after years of being a journalist."
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