Layover

by Lisa Zeidner

A smart and sexy novel about a woman on the edge, soon to be a major film
"Subtle, astute… Zeidner joins the ranks of Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood and Fay Weldon"New York Times Book Review, Notable Book of the Year
Claire Newbold is not your typical heroine. Smart and sexy, yes, but she's also been known to sneak into a hotel room or two without paying, seduce a teenager in wet bathing trunks, and just check out of things altogether - like her job. And her marriage.
Grieving the loss of her only child, and unsure of what's to become of her relationship, Claire takes a leave of absence from everyday life. She moves from hotel to hotel, basking in the anonymity of travel and forbidden sex, struggling to understand herself. Who has she become? And how will she ever find redemption?
"A moving portrait of a woman who reclaims her life... Zeidner skillfully charts the map of Claire's vulnerable heart... a wicked sendup of contemporary life"Publishers Weekly
"A sharp and wryly moving portrait of a woman in the midst of a breakdown... A wise and satisfying read"Kirkus Reviews
Lisa Zeidner has published five novels, including the critically acclaimed Layover, and two books of poems. Her stories, reviews, and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, GQ, Tin House and elsewhere. She directs the MFA program in creative writing at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Adult Fiction

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1999

About the author

Lisa Zeidner has published five novels, including the critically acclaimed Layover, and two books of poems. Her stories, reviews, and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, GQ,
Tin House, and elsewhere. She directs the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that blew me away when it first came out, only this one holds up. A grieving 40-something woman runs away from home, squats in upscale hotels (she's a business traveler and knows the rhythms of housekeeping) and seduces an 18-year-old boy. Funny, sexy, and sad.

[Jackie Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

“people’s identities are constructed like birds’ nests. That frantic and fragile. So what? Most of the time, they manage to hold together.”

Layover, by Lisa Zeidner, is the story of a woman going through a breakdown. Claire Newbold is a competent and successful salesperson travelling throughout America to meet with customers who buy medical equipment. She is married to Ken, a cardiathoracic surgeon in Ohio. Their much wanted and tried for young son died following a car accident. Claire is struggling to come to terms with this loss and the impact subsequent events have had on her marriage.

Claire is well used to moving from hotel to hotel via flights and rental cars. She likes to swim in hotel pools when they are quiet. On a business trip she swims for too long and misses her connection. With nothing urgent to return home for, such as collecting a child from daycare, she simply lies down to rest.

Thus begins a period when Claire steps outside of her routine. Something in her has shifted granting her permission to exist groundless and answerable only to herself. She sleeps, she swims, she eats from room service. Not wishing to be traceable by her concerned husband she starts to stay in hotels she has regularly frequented without paying, gaining illicit entry to unused rooms. She continues to keep appointments until this is thwarted by others’ apparent concern for her behaviour.

At one hotel she meets a young man at the small swimming pool and considers why she has remained faithful to Ken.

The reader sees the world through Claire’s eyes as she moves through her days. She has detached herself from expectations, become an unknown travelling through who will not be met again. Thus she can claim to be whatever she chooses at that moment and can say what she thinks. Her honesty appears shocking at times demonstrating how censored everyday actions and conversation can be.

Claire wishes to better understand relationships, to find out more about the husbands of women she encounters, the lovers of the men. There is a voyeuristic element to her stepping inside the lives of almost strangers. However disconnected she feels there is a need to be perceived.

Whilst relishing the anonymity and freedom it grants her, Claire recognises that this period is a coda from which she must eventually extricate herself. When the time comes to return to her life she encounters more difficulties than she had foreseen, not least because Ken has become frustrated by his errant wife’s avoidance and left it to her to contact him. Claire is worrying about potential health issues she has self-diagnosed and believes could be serious.

There is an honest fragility to the sometimes sharp but always authentic prose with its undercurrent of grief and subtle need. Through each of the characters the reader observes how precarious even the most outwardly comfortable of lives can be, each individual’s need for validation. This is a well structured and engaging read.

[Ylenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year I read and loved The Pisces (Melissa Broder) and My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Ottessa Moshfegh), so it's no surprise I ended up loving this book as well. It seems I tend to enjoy characters who refuse to live their "old" life, preferring to hibernate or hide somewhere.

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diabolically funny and deeply intelligent.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read many of the reviews of this book and am happy to say that I read it and enjoyed it. Not the best thing that I ever read, but a nice quick read.

[Katy Bess]

DNF. Boring, confusing, strange. Was not even sure what the plot of the story was, very different than the description. Oh well.

[Danae - WordPeace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the stream-of-consciousness narration that happens over the course of a few days, weeks, months. And how well the narrator knew herself, and how she could tidily describe her perceptions about others and the world. There were several lines in here that made me pause to consider the message, and a couple that made me laugh out loud (the ones generalizing about men, if I'm being honest). It was also refreshing to read something published in the 90s, when pagers and VHS tapes were how we interacted with the world. The hotel scams could definitely have worked then.

This story comes lauded as a sexy read, and I felt that here and there, but not to the point where it would be my main descriptor. It's decidedly not sexy to be spiraling from grief and a suffering marriage, not to mention frustrations about trying to get pregnant and a health concern. For the author's intents and purposes, I believe that was the point, actually. I still don't know how I feel about this protagonist and her choices!!! But usually that's the sign of a good book for me, one that keeps my mind stirring days after I turned the final page. Could I see myself in Claire Newbold? Actually, a little bit, maybe.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent writer, perfect style, wonderful feminine perspective. Her description if sex is done quite well, as most of her word and sentence choices. However, she's telling a story that will not linger, not with me. The start is interesting and new, the sneaking (needlessy btw, plotwise) into hotels without paying, but after that first part it's not much of a plot, and what plot there is lacks coherence.
I hate to write this, because this author certainly has everything to be memorable and canon.

[*Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman grieving the sudden loss of her only child, then discovers her husband had an affair in the aftermath, weaves her way through what appears to be a nervous breakdown. Her erratic decisions were awkward and her reasoning for a string of bad choices was difficult to comprehend; the whole book created a lingering sense of unease. The writing itself was excellent. I would say it was an enjoyable read, but it was stressful throughout.

[Cory Sydee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of a woman dealing with the death of her child, trying to escape her life but realising she cannot. Dealing with the many aspects of mental health and grief. Not amazingly well written, gaps and confusion in the narrative.

[Kyle Evens · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit hard to follow at times but overall it was worth the read. At one level it has a “Fear & Loathing” narrative stream, but at its core it is a story about a woman flirting with complete abandon as she stands at the crossroads of a multitude of life’s worst miseries.

[Athena Matisse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was unexpectedly brilliant.

[Random · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times tedious, at times gripping. Irrational shot through with light beams of wisdom. Plan on reading it slow like honey

[Paige · Rating 1 out of 5]

I struggled through this. Loose plot of a woman having a mental breakdown, no real story that made sense to me. The language was difficult to read and confusing. Maybe I just didn't 'get' this book.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb

[Louise Fligman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As humorous as Zeidner’s heroine is, the emotion is raw and heartfelt

Claire Newbold is not a conventional heroine. She’s intelligent and sexy, but she has also been known to sneak into different hotel rooms without paying, seduce a student in wet swimming trunks, and check out of important things altogether – like her job and her marriage. But it’s hardly surprising. Claire’s been suffering from heartbreak as she grieves over the death of her only child. Upon learning her husband has had an affair, she escapes from her everyday life and not only behaves illicitly but erratically too. As she moves anonymously from hotel to hotel, she tries to come to terms with the loss of her child, determine whether or not she wants to be a wife, and understand her life. Will she ever find redemption?

Claire is such a likeable character, not only because of what she says and thinks, but also because she succeeds in her immoral behaviour. The fact that she is able to remain anonymous and stay in hotels for as long as she likes without paying is laughable and incredible. Her comments about other people, whether it be about their clothes or face, made me laugh out loud.

However, beneath the humour, you get a sense of grief and loss that is raw, emotional and topical. No matter how much time has passed, a mother never forgets her child. Claire has memories of her son, Evan, but all that is left in her life is a space where he used to be and which cannot ever be filled by anyone else. The tragedy is heartfelt and it is clear that grief is all-consuming. It’s the first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing you think about before you go to sleep. The heartache that Claire experiences has a universality to it in that any parent – or anyone for that matter – who has lost someone dear to them can relate to her emotional situation. I felt so much sympathy for Claire and I kept hoping that she would somehow find a way to keep going with her life.

Zeidner’s writing is very powerful because she captures Claire’s state of mind that is shrouded in sorrow so well. At times, I was a little confused by Claire’s thought process because it did not seem to make much sense; she would drift from one idea to the next and the next with no clear or coherent line of thought. But I think that this is the point Zeidner wants to get across to her readers: when you lose someone you love and cherish, you cannot think properly about anything for a long time, sometimes never again.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The conclusion offers the reader hope for the future as Claire comes out of the proverbial mist and makes a decision about her life and marriage. Her ability to keep going, despite her familial circumstances, is inspirational to all those who have suffered loss. Layover is a novel that explores grief, marriage and life through its entertaining and emotional heroine.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Layover is narrated by Claire Newbold, a woman in her early forties who some years before the events chronicled in this novel endured the death of her only child in a freak traffic accident. This tragedy and the struggle to get past it have defined her recent life, but it is only after her husband Ken (a cardiothoracic surgeon) confesses to an infidelity that she comes more or less unhinged. Claire is a traveling sales rep for a medical supply company and while on the road she finds that Ken's confession has sapped her of the will or ability to pretend that it’s business as usual. Without warning she blows off meetings with clients, swims at all hours in the pool at whatever hotel she happens to be in, and enjoys late evening/early morning room service dinners. After her travel schedule goes out the window she avoids phone calls from people who are concerned about her and comes up with a variety of imaginative contrivances that enable her to stay in hotel rooms without paying. Eventually she lands in Philadelphia and checks into the Four Seasons. Here she seduces a teenager and begins to suspect that whatever is causing this erratic and uninhibited behaviour is not emotional but physical. She contacts her therapist for advice and obsesses over her condition, eventually after much research settling on a diagnosis. In her spare time she indulges in sex with absolute strangers. In Claire Newbold, Lisa Zeidner has created a sharp, witty, observant heroine whose risqué antics and wry musings make for compelling reading. Whether or not we actually care about her is another matter. Despite her emotional fragility, Claire exudes confidence, especially in matters sexual. When she strolls into an office building where she doesn’t belong, she knows that no one will challenge her. When she approaches a man (or in the case of Zachery, a boy) there is no doubt in her mind that he will want to have sex with her. She sets up these encounters and is in complete control of them, which makes her come across not so much as vulnerable, but as calculating. It is a line that she occasionally crosses, at which point some readers may lose patience with her. Still, Zeidner has written an absorbing, original and daring novel about a woman struggling to keep her life from unravelling. It’s a precarious balancing act, but in the end we’re still pulling for her to keep heart and soul together.

[Eileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel, witty as it is, is at its core about grief, the body's reaction to grief, the body's expression of grief, the trade secret of grief. Maybe I can't relate to the depths of such grief yet (and I hope that doesn't happen anytime soon!), but I have to admit I was mostly bored (same sentiment as reviewer below). -- eps, 10/12/00

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 

2/5stars Major disappointment, January 21, 2002 

Amaxon.com Reviewer: gyndocal from Elfin Forest, CA United States  

Although the quality of the writing at the beginning of this book was sufficient for me to buy it, I was left cold. It is a story of a middle-aged woman feeling despondent about the loss of a child (it's not clear how long in the past) and susequent one-time infidelity of her husband, who acts out by remaining away from home and engaging sexually with just about anybody in sight. Yes, some might be titillated by the frequent use of sexual terms, and I will admit that I like the author's style, but the book failed to go anywhere--It has no beginning, no crisis and a highly predictable outcome. If it were much longer than 268 pages, I'm certain I would not have finished this book. There are MANY books more worthy of one's time. 

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful: 

3/5stars 1st 100 pgs awesome, April 7, 2001 

Amazon.com Reviewer: blujackit from NJ  

The 1st 100 pages or so of this book were terrific. The book really crackles and the story moves along at a steady well timed pace. Then something just happened, like the story got bogged down in itself or something. I found myself skipping pages to get it over with. Overall an OK book 

[Maddie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is OK, and just OK. For about half of the novel I was intrigued by her straight forward descriptions, so shocking and real that I would read on for more. She described the aging female body precisely. However, once I realized that was all I was reading I looked further into the book and found a poor attempt to be modern literature--not just the romance novels my mother reads. And once I read the "About Author," I could not let go that I felt as though I was reading a blown-up version of her life. Rutger herself may be very stable, but going through life her mini-me in her head was acting out. Writing, yes, a good outlet but I was not in for a diary read. Having just gone through a creative writing program myself, I have placed Rutger in the category of a writing professor who believes in herself a bit too much, complimenting her own poetry (which she does in the novel) more than her students'.

Once I became tired of the nagging narration, I was reading one line of every page and I knew exactly what was happening all the way to the end. If I can do that, the author did not achieve cohesiveness or connectivity in their book. She should have published her diary, complete with the poetry she loves so much.

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a New York Times notable book, so I added it to my list of potential reads. Then I could never find it anywhere. Then suddenly a pristine copy popped up at the library book sale last weekend (along with a brand-new copy of The Ruins, which I sent to Bryan).

Layover is about Claire, a woman whose job selling medical equipment involves a lot of travel. But Claire--still hurting from the death of her son in a car accident and now wounded by her husband's ill-timed confession of infidelity--segues from traveling to hiding. Her knowledge of various hotels and their routines enables her to freeload, swimming in hotel pools and sleeping in rooms she hasn't paid for. Then when that stunt loses its thrill, Claire just holes up in the Four Seasons. She pulls a Mrs. Robinson with a teen-ager swimmer, attends a very strange dinner with the boy and his mother, and then presents herself as a "gift" to the kid's swinging single father.

Zeidner's prose, unsurprisingly, often reads like poetry.

"The only valuable thing in my life was my life. Even if it was only sentimental value."

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

God, I read this so long ago, let me think now . . . The narrator is a pharmaceutical sales rep who travels a lot. I can't remember what her husband does, but they've recently lost their only child and she is grieving very hard. She has returned to work and basically has a nervous breakdown while on one of her ubiquitous business trips somewhere far away from home. She starts checking into the rooms of the hotel she's staying at once her fellow guests have checked out so that she doesn't have to return to reality. (That's right, she sneaks into the rooms before they've been cleaned by the housekeeping staff and hangs out for as long as she can keep the room.) A very well-written book about how one mother deals with possibly the worst pain a parent can go through and how she finally gets on the path to trying again.

[Ania Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A raw story about a married, middle-aged woman who, arguably, isn't depressed (although she has every right to be) and uses her sexy confidence to make things turn out in her favor (whether it's staying an extra night at a hotel she didn't pay for, or meeting someone she shouldn't be meeting). I can wrap up her journey in one quote that I wrote down the moment I read it: "Hold On. Even if you're not sure what you're holding on to." Claire holds on the best she can, and readers are granted access into the way she does it - and what it means for her marriage.

[Annemariem · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very odd book, describing the bender a woman goes on when her only child dies. She skulks around hotels, staying there without paying. She encounters men and uses them. She goes swimming. Pervading the book is an air of intense loneliness and despair. And all the while her husband is waiting at home for her to come to her senses.
Odd, distant, very masculine in tone and very feminine in theme. Liked it but didn't love it.

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Claire, a woman reeling from the death of her son and her husband’s infidelity, takes a month off -- moving from hotel to hotel along her usual traveling saleswoman trail, not even checking in, just staying in an empty room with the unknowing connivance of hotel staff who know her from previous stays. Recovery and “finding herself” through anonymous sex with an eighteen year old, and then with his father.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, honest look at a woman having a nervous breakdown. Her child died; her husband coped by cheating on her. To deal with her own grief, she sneaks into hotel rooms and sleeps with inappropriate people. There's not a cliché in the book -- I don't know if I've ever read such realistic descriptions of female sexuality.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

originally purchased at an airport simply for the cover alone (yow, sexy and dangerous), layover turned out to be quite the surprisingly satisfying erotic thriller, as well as a great meditation on loneliness, obsession, and family relationships. and dirty, too -- ooh, man, is it dirty. a great fast read that i recommend.

[Pamela Hubbard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has so many layers that I don't think I even have a basic understanding after reading it just once. Claire Newbold deals with grief in a unique way and Zeidner writes so clearly and deeply that you can feel the emotions dripping off the page. I wasn't captured by the book but it was definitely an interesting read!

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

this books implies it will be a racy romp. instead is a depressed woman's beautifully written story. she spirals a little bit too painfully out of control so it wasnt an easy read emotionally, but it was written in a clear honest manner.

[Shelly Glasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant book. I've optioned it and it's in development for a feature film.

[Carrie | Boston Book Fanatic]

10/03