By Lidija Haas
Discussed in this essay:
Private Novelist, by Nell Zink. Ecco. 336 pages. $15.99.
Nicotine, by Nell Zink. Ecco. 304 pages. $26.99.
Mislaid, by Nell Zink. Ecco. 256 pages. $26.99.
The Wallcreeper, by Nell Zink. Dorothy. 200 pages. $16.
“On average I hate all books,” Nell Zink wrote last year, in an early review of Purity, the latest novel by her friend and champion Jonathan Franzen. The article was a sort of stunt: Zink compared the book to A Little Princess and said she looked forward to reading the real reviews. Her jokes weren’t unthreatening, although Franzen,…