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Young God
Stripped down and stylized―the sharpest, boldest, brashest debut of the year Meet Nikki, the most determined young woman in the North Carolina hills. Determined not to let deadbeats and dropouts set her future. Determined to use whatever tools she can get her hands on to shape the world to her will. Determined to preserve her family's domination of the local drug trade. Nikki is thirteen years old.
Opening with a deadly plunge from a high cliff into a tiny swimming hole, Young God refuses to slow down for a moment as it charts Nikki's battles against isolation and victimhood. Nikki may be young, but she's a fast learner, and soon―perhaps too soon, if in fact it's not too late―she knows exactly how to wield her powers over the people around her. The only thing slowing her down is the inheritance she's been promised but can't seem to find, buried somewhere deep in those hills and always just out of reach.
With prose stripped down to its bare essence, brash and electrifying, brutal yet starkly beautiful, Katherine Faw Morris's Young God is a debut that demands your attention and won't be forgotten―just like Nikki, who will cut you if you let that attention waver.
Opening with a deadly plunge from a high cliff into a tiny swimming hole, Young God refuses to slow down for a moment as it charts Nikki's battles against isolation and victimhood. Nikki may be young, but she's a fast learner, and soon―perhaps too soon, if in fact it's not too late―she knows exactly how to wield her powers over the people around her. The only thing slowing her down is the inheritance she's been promised but can't seem to find, buried somewhere deep in those hills and always just out of reach.
With prose stripped down to its bare essence, brash and electrifying, brutal yet starkly beautiful, Katherine Faw Morris's Young God is a debut that demands your attention and won't be forgotten―just like Nikki, who will cut you if you let that attention waver.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published May 6, 2014
24 people are currently reading
2164 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Faw Morris
4 books32 followersKatherine Faw Morris is from North Carolina and lives in Brooklyn. Her debut novel was Young God. She is now known as Katherine Faw.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 201 reviews
November 4, 2019
the kind of grit lit i like is the kind that juxtaposes its violence or desolation with a vivid, lyrical prose. i love that contrast. it's what makes me reach for Daniel Woodrell or Ron Rash; it's what makes Suttree my favorite mccarthy, it's what made deadwood such a popular show. a little beauty transforms the bleak into the heroic, makes the bitterness more bearable.
there is nothing beautiful here. this is just pure, hard, angry true grit.
on the one hand - yes - it is very effective. it's a relentless whirlpool sucking its characters and readers into an ever-tightening coil of death and drugs and murder and teen prostitution and weapons and betrayal and more and more and more in a stripped-down prose that stains the page sometimes with as little as a single sentence.
on the other hand, sometimes it seems to be trying too hard to shock; to be playing for the grotesque. this is what having that layer of lyrical prose can sometimes mitigate. it stirs the emotions and inspires more than just visceral revulsion. and i don't mean this, from the back cover:
…she so quickly gets to the core of Nikki, her young heroine, who's only beginning to learn about her power over the people around her - learning too early, perhaps, but also just soon enough, if not too late.
thankfully, that was not the tone of the book, because that sentence on the back of the book nearly made me change my mind about reading it.
and i'm glad i read it. i think the character arc is tremendous, but it's the kind of book you appreciate more after you read it than while you are actually reading it. if you like James Ellroy or Denis Johnson, two authors mentioned as comparisons that i meant to have read by this point in my life, this might ring different bells for you than it rang for me.
i think i will try to write a better review for this tomorrow.
let's pause for now.
so, yeah - it's a really strong character study - a coming of age that tracks a young girl's simultaneous descent into criminality and decadence and ascent into … well, okay, her ascent is also something of a descent. it's complicated. nasty, brutish and short, baby.
pausing doesn't seem to have helped that much. holiday season saps me utterly.
come to my blog!
there is nothing beautiful here. this is just pure, hard, angry true grit.
on the one hand - yes - it is very effective. it's a relentless whirlpool sucking its characters and readers into an ever-tightening coil of death and drugs and murder and teen prostitution and weapons and betrayal and more and more and more in a stripped-down prose that stains the page sometimes with as little as a single sentence.
on the other hand, sometimes it seems to be trying too hard to shock; to be playing for the grotesque. this is what having that layer of lyrical prose can sometimes mitigate. it stirs the emotions and inspires more than just visceral revulsion. and i don't mean this, from the back cover:
…she so quickly gets to the core of Nikki, her young heroine, who's only beginning to learn about her power over the people around her - learning too early, perhaps, but also just soon enough, if not too late.
thankfully, that was not the tone of the book, because that sentence on the back of the book nearly made me change my mind about reading it.
and i'm glad i read it. i think the character arc is tremendous, but it's the kind of book you appreciate more after you read it than while you are actually reading it. if you like James Ellroy or Denis Johnson, two authors mentioned as comparisons that i meant to have read by this point in my life, this might ring different bells for you than it rang for me.
i think i will try to write a better review for this tomorrow.
let's pause for now.
so, yeah - it's a really strong character study - a coming of age that tracks a young girl's simultaneous descent into criminality and decadence and ascent into … well, okay, her ascent is also something of a descent. it's complicated. nasty, brutish and short, baby.
pausing doesn't seem to have helped that much. holiday season saps me utterly.
come to my blog!
May 14, 2014
Uh ... not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that.
This book was overwhelmingly gross. It was much too nasty to "like." Why on earth would I want to read about a thirteen-year-old girl seemingly detached from her emotions, fumbling her way into hardcore drugs? I don't know. But I just did.
Lessons learned:
1) Pretty much any grown man will fuck/want to fuck/think about fucking a thirteen-year-old girl who dresses older and wears cat-eye makeup.
2) If you shoot it up, you get that rush.
3) Your ounce isn't short—it's the metric system, dumb ass.
4) Drugs are just as gross as I thought they were.
I can't remember why I decided to read this. I think I saw it recommended on a website somewhere. I should have stopped reading this way in the beginning. Maybe about the time Nikki has sex with her newly dead mother's younger boyfriend.
I think I had a permanent lip curl of disgust while I read. I don't know what DSS is, but for the love of god, couldn't someone just get CPS to take this poor, fucked up little girl away and get her head right? It's not too late!
This book was overwhelmingly gross. It was much too nasty to "like." Why on earth would I want to read about a thirteen-year-old girl seemingly detached from her emotions, fumbling her way into hardcore drugs? I don't know. But I just did.
Lessons learned:
1) Pretty much any grown man will fuck/want to fuck/think about fucking a thirteen-year-old girl who dresses older and wears cat-eye makeup.
2) If you shoot it up, you get that rush.
3) Your ounce isn't short—it's the metric system, dumb ass.
4) Drugs are just as gross as I thought they were.
I can't remember why I decided to read this. I think I saw it recommended on a website somewhere. I should have stopped reading this way in the beginning. Maybe about the time Nikki has sex with her newly dead mother's younger boyfriend.
I think I had a permanent lip curl of disgust while I read. I don't know what DSS is, but for the love of god, couldn't someone just get CPS to take this poor, fucked up little girl away and get her head right? It's not too late!
July 9, 2015
Young God is a short sharp shock. Words like 'raw' and 'brutal' are scattered liberally throughout reviews of this bleak novella, for good reason: the prose is stripped down to its bare bones, and the story is tough and unapologetic.
The book narrates a short period in the life of Nikki, the thirteen-year-old daughter of a North Carolina drug dealer. We don't get a proper backstory for Nikki, but we know she's spent some time living in a 'group home' and that her dad's been in prison. After her mother dies (accident, suicide or murder? It's not clear, and nor is there any resolution - this is not that sort of book), Nikki steals a bag of pills from her boyfriend and heads up to her father's house, looking for a way into his 'trade'. But it turns out he's living with a girl who's two years older than her (also an ex-resident of the home) and has become a pimp. Various horrible scenes ensue, Nikki's dad gets into selling heroin, Nikki gets into taking it. Throughout the story Nikki's character vacillates between desensitised victim and determined fighter, ensuring self-preservation at all costs. She is comparatively naive - about sex, about drugs - but judges herself ready to be an adult.
Scanning interviews with the author reveals the book was originally much longer before she started cutting it down to the raw material. In many ways this ruthless editing has worked well: the starkness of the prose goes hand-in-hand with the horrible reality of the characters' lives, and the language can sometimes be childlike - reminding you that Nikki is just a kid, despite everything. There is a detached numbness to the whole thing that suits Nikki's necessarily switched-off mentality, whether it's her dissociation when faced with sex or violence, or her woozy, sickly drug experiences. However, this also makes a lot of the dialogue sound stilted and totally unrealistic, and sometimes makes you feel like you've missed something. It's hard to figure out what just happened when all you have to go on is yet another character saying 'what?' (which makes up about half the dialogue, I think). It's like listening to a film without looking at the screen.
The subject matter is unremittingly bleak, and the ending offers no respite; while Nikki is the 'victor', you sense her future only holds more violence, abuse and drug dependency, that this moment, at thirteen, is probably her peak, which is enormously depressing in itself. Young God is powerful but too horrible to be something you can enjoy reading, and I feel - from the interviews as well as the book - that the author has tried a little too hard to make her story controversial and gritty. Easy to read in an hour, which is a good job because if it was a long story you probably wouldn't want to keep going back to it.
The book narrates a short period in the life of Nikki, the thirteen-year-old daughter of a North Carolina drug dealer. We don't get a proper backstory for Nikki, but we know she's spent some time living in a 'group home' and that her dad's been in prison. After her mother dies (accident, suicide or murder? It's not clear, and nor is there any resolution - this is not that sort of book), Nikki steals a bag of pills from her boyfriend and heads up to her father's house, looking for a way into his 'trade'. But it turns out he's living with a girl who's two years older than her (also an ex-resident of the home) and has become a pimp. Various horrible scenes ensue, Nikki's dad gets into selling heroin, Nikki gets into taking it. Throughout the story Nikki's character vacillates between desensitised victim and determined fighter, ensuring self-preservation at all costs. She is comparatively naive - about sex, about drugs - but judges herself ready to be an adult.
Scanning interviews with the author reveals the book was originally much longer before she started cutting it down to the raw material. In many ways this ruthless editing has worked well: the starkness of the prose goes hand-in-hand with the horrible reality of the characters' lives, and the language can sometimes be childlike - reminding you that Nikki is just a kid, despite everything. There is a detached numbness to the whole thing that suits Nikki's necessarily switched-off mentality, whether it's her dissociation when faced with sex or violence, or her woozy, sickly drug experiences. However, this also makes a lot of the dialogue sound stilted and totally unrealistic, and sometimes makes you feel like you've missed something. It's hard to figure out what just happened when all you have to go on is yet another character saying 'what?' (which makes up about half the dialogue, I think). It's like listening to a film without looking at the screen.
The subject matter is unremittingly bleak, and the ending offers no respite; while Nikki is the 'victor', you sense her future only holds more violence, abuse and drug dependency, that this moment, at thirteen, is probably her peak, which is enormously depressing in itself. Young God is powerful but too horrible to be something you can enjoy reading, and I feel - from the interviews as well as the book - that the author has tried a little too hard to make her story controversial and gritty. Easy to read in an hour, which is a good job because if it was a long story you probably wouldn't want to keep going back to it.
December 14, 2014
Yet another example of an author trying to break into the writing scene by stringing together shocking imagery to disguise an inability to write coherent fiction. Fans of Daniel Woodrell (and to a lesser degree, Hubert Selby, Jr.) will probably find this underdeveloped Appalachian-Mountain-white-trash-behaving-badly tale to their liking for about five minutes, until realizing there's just no story there to support the shock value.
May 14, 2015
2.5 of 5 stars
‘She dreams of nothing, which is her favorite dream and inside of her is a low buzz.’
Set in the Appalachian foothills in North Carolina, Nikki has just witnessed her mother plunge to her death off a cliff at the local swimming hole. Wasting no time so as to keep Child Protective Services from taking her she seeks out the help of her estranged father, Coy Hawkins, who, she says with pride, used to be the biggest coke dealer in the county. Coy has since moved on to other lucrative work in the form of child prostitution but Nikki is determined to not only get him back into the “family business” but to work right alongside him.
‘Since she is going to die she would like to be remembered, spoken of in the backs of cars in words that shudder.’
I read Child of God a few years ago and never thought I would ever read a book more unsavory than that. Young God definitely tops that. Despite the fact that Nikki is thirteen, her age was something you could easily forget given the complete and utter depravity of the story, although once you do recall her age it just makes it all the more shocking. Nikki is impassive and tragically naive, yet never a victim, she transforms into a compelling heroine determined to survive. But again, she’s thirteen, however, the things that took place within these pages would be appalling no matter the age.
Young God hastily captures all the harsh realities of living with poverty and addiction in the backwoods of the South. The violence and complete corruption at times felt in excess but still succeeds in capturing just how easily it is to fall once you’re on the downward slope. More a novella at approximately 22,000 words, we’re granted somewhat of a reprieve from the violence in the sparse and apathetic way the narrative is written. Searingly crude, and unrefined this will shock even the hardiest of readers and the non-ending to Nikki’s story will only leave you contemplating the horrors of what’s to come for this young girl.
I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
‘She dreams of nothing, which is her favorite dream and inside of her is a low buzz.’
Set in the Appalachian foothills in North Carolina, Nikki has just witnessed her mother plunge to her death off a cliff at the local swimming hole. Wasting no time so as to keep Child Protective Services from taking her she seeks out the help of her estranged father, Coy Hawkins, who, she says with pride, used to be the biggest coke dealer in the county. Coy has since moved on to other lucrative work in the form of child prostitution but Nikki is determined to not only get him back into the “family business” but to work right alongside him.
‘Since she is going to die she would like to be remembered, spoken of in the backs of cars in words that shudder.’
I read Child of God a few years ago and never thought I would ever read a book more unsavory than that. Young God definitely tops that. Despite the fact that Nikki is thirteen, her age was something you could easily forget given the complete and utter depravity of the story, although once you do recall her age it just makes it all the more shocking. Nikki is impassive and tragically naive, yet never a victim, she transforms into a compelling heroine determined to survive. But again, she’s thirteen, however, the things that took place within these pages would be appalling no matter the age.
Young God hastily captures all the harsh realities of living with poverty and addiction in the backwoods of the South. The violence and complete corruption at times felt in excess but still succeeds in capturing just how easily it is to fall once you’re on the downward slope. More a novella at approximately 22,000 words, we’re granted somewhat of a reprieve from the violence in the sparse and apathetic way the narrative is written. Searingly crude, and unrefined this will shock even the hardiest of readers and the non-ending to Nikki’s story will only leave you contemplating the horrors of what’s to come for this young girl.
I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
May 1, 2020
Nikki feels nothing. I felt nothing.
This might work for some but i found it too over-the-top. Perhaps that was the point? It read like contrived grit lit & borrowed heavily from True Detective & Winter's Bone. Predictable. Emotionless. Meh.
This might work for some but i found it too over-the-top. Perhaps that was the point? It read like contrived grit lit & borrowed heavily from True Detective & Winter's Bone. Predictable. Emotionless. Meh.
June 11, 2014
When prose is billed as minimal, raw or intense, yet is filled with blocking (characters looking at each other, pointing at each other with their chins, etc.) often using the same language over and over again, its evidence not of a style but a deficiency. Reads like a long and pointless screenplay.
October 31, 2014
75 pages of bad writing stretched into 200 pages of dull story telling.
I think this book is cashing in on the public appeal lately for "raw" and "bold" books but this one has no depth. Almost all of the chapters are shorter than a page as if that's supposed to make them more dramatic. The grammar isn't great and the characters are all one-sided. The back of the book promised a debut unlike any since Fight Club and the inside of the book jacket promised a story about a girl that is "determined to use whatever tools she can get her hands on to shape the world to her will" in a story that's "brash and electrifying, brutal yet starkly beautiful". This book didn't have any one of those characteristics.
The protagonist wasn't determined in anything, throughout the whole book, she was a nuisance that things happened more AROUND than TO. There isn't even a point to her being 13, she acts like a five year old in the way she responds to anything said to her ("Where are we going?" "What?" "Huh?") but apparently look like she could pass for eighteen when she needs to, the whole story could've turned out exactly the same no matter how old she was. It seems like an after thought the author put in to make her a thirteen year old that would make the sex scenes more "raw" and "bold".
There have been writers that rise above bad debuts but after reading this, Katherine Morris doesn't look very promising, the best I can say about her is that she looks very good in the book jacket's picture of her.
If you want to read a book about drugs, read Trainspotting.
If you want to read a book about cringe worthy sex, read 50 Shades of Grey.
If you want to read a book full of bad writing, read Twilight.
If you want to read a mix of all three (with an over-balance of the latter) read this book.
I think this book is cashing in on the public appeal lately for "raw" and "bold" books but this one has no depth. Almost all of the chapters are shorter than a page as if that's supposed to make them more dramatic. The grammar isn't great and the characters are all one-sided. The back of the book promised a debut unlike any since Fight Club and the inside of the book jacket promised a story about a girl that is "determined to use whatever tools she can get her hands on to shape the world to her will" in a story that's "brash and electrifying, brutal yet starkly beautiful". This book didn't have any one of those characteristics.
The protagonist wasn't determined in anything, throughout the whole book, she was a nuisance that things happened more AROUND than TO. There isn't even a point to her being 13, she acts like a five year old in the way she responds to anything said to her ("Where are we going?" "What?" "Huh?") but apparently look like she could pass for eighteen when she needs to, the whole story could've turned out exactly the same no matter how old she was. It seems like an after thought the author put in to make her a thirteen year old that would make the sex scenes more "raw" and "bold".
There have been writers that rise above bad debuts but after reading this, Katherine Morris doesn't look very promising, the best I can say about her is that she looks very good in the book jacket's picture of her.
If you want to read a book about drugs, read Trainspotting.
If you want to read a book about cringe worthy sex, read 50 Shades of Grey.
If you want to read a book full of bad writing, read Twilight.
If you want to read a mix of all three (with an over-balance of the latter) read this book.
July 23, 2020
Young God by Katherine Faw Morris is a sparsely written, dark, Southern Gothic tale of 13-year-old Nikki trying to thread her way through and around the darkness found in the hills of North Carolina. All the while, Nikki is surrounded by degenerate people, including her released from prison father, each one seemingly nastier than the next.
Nikki, herself no shrinking violet, in both word and deed, decides to embrace what comes with her surroundings while learning best how to survive mostly on her own.
The writing in Young God is derivative and similar to what is often found in the writings of Daniel Woodrell, William Gay, and Larry Brown. Be forewarned, the writing is raw, graphic, and to the point.
Young God is recommended to those fond of Southern Noir/Grit Lit and novels where writers are not afraid to bump up right next to the nasty underbelly of drug trafficking, abuse, and other forms of criminal deviance.
Nikki, herself no shrinking violet, in both word and deed, decides to embrace what comes with her surroundings while learning best how to survive mostly on her own.
The writing in Young God is derivative and similar to what is often found in the writings of Daniel Woodrell, William Gay, and Larry Brown. Be forewarned, the writing is raw, graphic, and to the point.
Young God is recommended to those fond of Southern Noir/Grit Lit and novels where writers are not afraid to bump up right next to the nasty underbelly of drug trafficking, abuse, and other forms of criminal deviance.
June 9, 2014
The blast of this novel is almost too strong - it flashes by you like streetlamps exploding as you drive past. The talent present is undeniable, though. To not only write such a visceral, violent novel but to then cut it down so ruthlessly... Katherine Faw Morris might well be her own novel title. Those of you who get squeamish, have any kind of need for any kind of trigger warning, or who don't appreciate the underbelly of American reality... well, perhaps steer clear. But if you've got guts, take a crack at this one. It'll rock you, roll you, and leave you panting when its over, wondering what the hell just happened - in the best possible way.
More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/06...
More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/06...
July 24, 2014
I expected to hate it based on the reviews I read here. I actually really liked it. It was dark and awful but struck a chord. I love the way Faw writes. Her word choice and resulting imagery is some of the best I've seen in a while.
December 3, 2016
I'm just going to flat out say it...
What the hell did I just read ? WHOA... Gritty, but wowwwww like I'm just floored.
What the hell did I just read ? WHOA... Gritty, but wowwwww like I'm just floored.
September 21, 2018
This book is like if a teenage sociopath girl was telling you about a train wreck. I strongly disliked it, but I don't put it down. Probably because it was so disturbing that I just couldn't believe it. At least it was short.
February 28, 2024
"Nikki is all to hell." And so is Morris' short, terse book, but such is the life of trailer-park pedophiles, pimps, and wannabe hookers.
Nikki may be young, but there's nothing godly about herself or her situation, since it's a self-fulfilling prophecy forced upon her that only provides one path — one of destruction.
As such, "This is the future."
Nikki may be young, but there's nothing godly about herself or her situation, since it's a self-fulfilling prophecy forced upon her that only provides one path — one of destruction.
As such, "This is the future."
March 19, 2018
3.5 but i'm rounding up to 4.
if you can i highly recommend you sit down and read this all in one shot - its 193 pages but many of the pages have only a few lines on them so its really more like 80-100 pages max. i think stopping mid-read would pull you from the story. it's not a book for the faint of heart, there's a lot of violence happening and much of it in a cavalier way, but if you can handle that its worth the hour of your time to experience it.
if you can i highly recommend you sit down and read this all in one shot - its 193 pages but many of the pages have only a few lines on them so its really more like 80-100 pages max. i think stopping mid-read would pull you from the story. it's not a book for the faint of heart, there's a lot of violence happening and much of it in a cavalier way, but if you can handle that its worth the hour of your time to experience it.
June 17, 2018
Shocking, gripping, real. Perfect for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh.
May 15, 2014
Rating: 3.5/5
If you’ve heard of this new, debut novel, chances are you’ve heard words like “gritty,” “raw,” and “bare” attached to it. The style, the characters, and their realities are all no-holds-barred and in your face. You want candy-coating and flowers? Better look elsewhere.
Nikki is Young God’s thirteen-year-old protagonist. She is impressionable and naïve, but she is also scrappy. She is ready to grow up, and she doesn’t want to appear inexperienced (“I ain’t a virgin,” she proclaims three times in the book) or youthful. In her experience, adults have sex and do drugs and act tough . . . and she’s ready to be just like them.
Her mom dies in the first few pages of the book, but Nikki doesn’t mourn her much. Her main objective is to avoid ending up back at the group home. She hangs out with her mom’s boyfriend for a while before stealing his car and driving out to her dad’s trailer.
Her dad, Coy Hawkins, recently got out of jail. He used to be the biggest coke dealer in the county, but now he’s just a crackhead who pimps out teenage girls (“This is my new thing. This is the future.”). Nikki is desperate to stay with Coy, to impress him, to earn his acceptance (if not love), and she will do anything to please him.
Niki and her dad live in the foothills of North Carolina, many miles from the nearest city. On the setting, twenty-six-year-old author Katherine Faw Morris told this to Granta: "Actually, I think people tend to fetishize the rural South, and especially Appalachia, which is where I grew up. It’s either the mountain man, who knows the name of every plant and tree, and gathers wild roots in the woods, and goes home to his shack to do a little banjo-pickin’. Or it’s the raising-hell redneck with a couple of blood feuds. Or it’s the inbred Deliverance hillbilly, just lurking out there, looking for some ass to rape. I didn’t set out to rewrite all that. I just wrote my take on where I grew up, which is, of course, highly specific." Young God’s Appalachia is real in the way the Ozarks are real in Winter’s Bone. This is the country, and, like the rest of the book, it’s not particularly pretty.
There’s a reason most of the hype about this book focuses on the style. It is short and choppy and something akin to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (but harsher, meaner, and purposely less polished). Morris took what was once a 100,000-word novel and hacked it down to its bare minimum (“I’m definitely a gut, instinctual writer, and I found that when I started cutting, it started feeling better. Then I started chopping and it felt great . . . . When I got down to the bone, I thought now this is something I can really fuck with, and then I cut some more.”). What was left is this short, stark, bold novel. Some pages contain only one sentence (“HEROIN IS THE MOST SECRET OF THEM ALL and needles are the most secret part and she has always loved secrets ever since she was a little girl.”), and all 208 pages can easily be read in an hour.
Is it engrossing? Yes.
Intended to shock? Certainly.
Pleasant? Hell, no.
Worth reading? Absolutely.
If you’ve heard of this new, debut novel, chances are you’ve heard words like “gritty,” “raw,” and “bare” attached to it. The style, the characters, and their realities are all no-holds-barred and in your face. You want candy-coating and flowers? Better look elsewhere.
Nikki is Young God’s thirteen-year-old protagonist. She is impressionable and naïve, but she is also scrappy. She is ready to grow up, and she doesn’t want to appear inexperienced (“I ain’t a virgin,” she proclaims three times in the book) or youthful. In her experience, adults have sex and do drugs and act tough . . . and she’s ready to be just like them.
Her mom dies in the first few pages of the book, but Nikki doesn’t mourn her much. Her main objective is to avoid ending up back at the group home. She hangs out with her mom’s boyfriend for a while before stealing his car and driving out to her dad’s trailer.
Her dad, Coy Hawkins, recently got out of jail. He used to be the biggest coke dealer in the county, but now he’s just a crackhead who pimps out teenage girls (“This is my new thing. This is the future.”). Nikki is desperate to stay with Coy, to impress him, to earn his acceptance (if not love), and she will do anything to please him.
Niki and her dad live in the foothills of North Carolina, many miles from the nearest city. On the setting, twenty-six-year-old author Katherine Faw Morris told this to Granta: "Actually, I think people tend to fetishize the rural South, and especially Appalachia, which is where I grew up. It’s either the mountain man, who knows the name of every plant and tree, and gathers wild roots in the woods, and goes home to his shack to do a little banjo-pickin’. Or it’s the raising-hell redneck with a couple of blood feuds. Or it’s the inbred Deliverance hillbilly, just lurking out there, looking for some ass to rape. I didn’t set out to rewrite all that. I just wrote my take on where I grew up, which is, of course, highly specific." Young God’s Appalachia is real in the way the Ozarks are real in Winter’s Bone. This is the country, and, like the rest of the book, it’s not particularly pretty.
There’s a reason most of the hype about this book focuses on the style. It is short and choppy and something akin to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (but harsher, meaner, and purposely less polished). Morris took what was once a 100,000-word novel and hacked it down to its bare minimum (“I’m definitely a gut, instinctual writer, and I found that when I started cutting, it started feeling better. Then I started chopping and it felt great . . . . When I got down to the bone, I thought now this is something I can really fuck with, and then I cut some more.”). What was left is this short, stark, bold novel. Some pages contain only one sentence (“HEROIN IS THE MOST SECRET OF THEM ALL and needles are the most secret part and she has always loved secrets ever since she was a little girl.”), and all 208 pages can easily be read in an hour.
Is it engrossing? Yes.
Intended to shock? Certainly.
Pleasant? Hell, no.
Worth reading? Absolutely.
December 15, 2014
The reason I was drawn to this book was through hearing of its author, Katherine Faw Morris. She's from a small county in northwest North Carolina, about 80 miles from where I live. The second thing that drew me in was its intriguing title. What could a book called "Young God" possibly be about? Within 10 minutes of reading this debut novel, my question was answered.
The protagonist of this book is 13 year old Nikki, the daughter of a notorious pimp and "the biggest coke dealer in the county." We never get a proper backstory for Nikki, although it's hinted that she has spent some time in a group home prior to the opening of the story. At the beginning of the novel Nikki witnesses her mother fall sixty feet into a swimming hole, her body slamming into sharp rocks on the long way down. Nobody cares about it or mourns her, it's clear early on that emotions have no place in the bleak landscape of this novel. Several pages after her mother's death, Nikki consoles herself by going home and having sex with her mother's boyfriend.
It's a sonorous start for a book, and it doesn't take long for Morris to completely dismantle your moral center. In the eyes of 13 year old Nikki, events like murder, rape, prostitution, and drug dealing take place with the same normality and regularity as the morning paper. The bizarre father and daughter relationship between Nikki and her father, Coy Hawkins (he's never addressed as "dad," but called by his first and last name only throughout the entire book) is at the center of this novel. At one point in the book, Nikki brings her father another young girl, because, of course, virgins make more money. It's the most horrific case of learning by example, and young Nikki picks up fast. She learns how to buy and sell heroin after seeing her father do it once. And, as we witness for ourselves, she becomes extremely good at it.
Morris does not portray Nikki as someone the reader should pity. Instead, you feel drawn into a connection with her, one that alternates between fear and a creeping sense of foreboding. You feel scared for her, because you know that she probably won't live to see her fifteenth birthday, and scared of her and her dangerous efficiency. The ending offers the reader no comfort either. While Nikki 'wins' in the final pages you still get a sense that her future holds the certainty of more violence, drug dependency, and ultimately, death.
At only about 20,000 words it's easy to read this book in one sitting. Scenes jump chaotically from one to the next and you're left wondering what happened in the blank spaces. The writing is sparse and frenzied, with some vignettes going on for several pages and some only consisting of one sentence. The brevity of this book only adds to its raw power, not a single word is wasted here. Morris' choice in making this book brief was a wise one, if it had been any longer I could not see myself continuing to go back to read it. It's a one time punch to the gut. And man, I liked it.
The protagonist of this book is 13 year old Nikki, the daughter of a notorious pimp and "the biggest coke dealer in the county." We never get a proper backstory for Nikki, although it's hinted that she has spent some time in a group home prior to the opening of the story. At the beginning of the novel Nikki witnesses her mother fall sixty feet into a swimming hole, her body slamming into sharp rocks on the long way down. Nobody cares about it or mourns her, it's clear early on that emotions have no place in the bleak landscape of this novel. Several pages after her mother's death, Nikki consoles herself by going home and having sex with her mother's boyfriend.
It's a sonorous start for a book, and it doesn't take long for Morris to completely dismantle your moral center. In the eyes of 13 year old Nikki, events like murder, rape, prostitution, and drug dealing take place with the same normality and regularity as the morning paper. The bizarre father and daughter relationship between Nikki and her father, Coy Hawkins (he's never addressed as "dad," but called by his first and last name only throughout the entire book) is at the center of this novel. At one point in the book, Nikki brings her father another young girl, because, of course, virgins make more money. It's the most horrific case of learning by example, and young Nikki picks up fast. She learns how to buy and sell heroin after seeing her father do it once. And, as we witness for ourselves, she becomes extremely good at it.
Morris does not portray Nikki as someone the reader should pity. Instead, you feel drawn into a connection with her, one that alternates between fear and a creeping sense of foreboding. You feel scared for her, because you know that she probably won't live to see her fifteenth birthday, and scared of her and her dangerous efficiency. The ending offers the reader no comfort either. While Nikki 'wins' in the final pages you still get a sense that her future holds the certainty of more violence, drug dependency, and ultimately, death.
At only about 20,000 words it's easy to read this book in one sitting. Scenes jump chaotically from one to the next and you're left wondering what happened in the blank spaces. The writing is sparse and frenzied, with some vignettes going on for several pages and some only consisting of one sentence. The brevity of this book only adds to its raw power, not a single word is wasted here. Morris' choice in making this book brief was a wise one, if it had been any longer I could not see myself continuing to go back to read it. It's a one time punch to the gut. And man, I liked it.
Read
June 13, 2016 In this fast-paced, gritty, and raw book created by Katherine Faw Morris, readers jump into the chaotic life of Nikki-only thirteen years old- getting ready to plunge herself from a cliff to a swimming hole. This is just the beginning of the many twisted and unusual experiences this young girl encounters. As Morris depicts a world through the eyes of Nikki, readers are able to view these experiences in a different light. Morris, who uses descriptive sentences without the inclusion of Nikki’s feelings on the topic, we are able to form our own emotions and wonder how on earth Nikki is able to go through life with such turmoil.
As much as it is fiction, you can’t help but feel an emotional attachment to the characters, who are often exposed to brutal and unruly circumstances at such a tender age. As we read, we follow Nikki step-by-step. You’ll meet her father, who is well-known in the underground world of drug-trade, as well as all of the customers who come along with it. We come in contact with yet another, batch might I say, of desensitized young girls who fall into the trap of prostitution run by her father. Nikki who, determined to stay away from the cops in fear of going back into child services, hides the homicide of one of the young girls whom her very own father has killed, and we are left to wonder why she is so willing to participate in such criminal acts.
Due to the barren writing style Morris applies to her book, no one is able to really pick apart how Nikki feels, leaving you wanting more. You are left hoping Nikki will show you an ounce of emotion. This young god, as the author would describe her, is quick-witted, and street smart making her almost completely unattainable. She is made to seem emotionless, but definitely not lifeless as her tell-all journeys are spiked with adrenaline. Whether it be her trying heroin for the first time, or her selling it, she won’t disappoint you in seeking a shock-factor. Nikki, who is free as can be, seems unstoppable, young, and reckless, but will she make it out okay, or yet, even alive?
For more of Katherine Faw Morris’s work and writing pieces, visit her website at http://www.katherinefawmorris.com.
Reviewed by Chloe K., TAB@DPL Reader Advisor since 2015.
As much as it is fiction, you can’t help but feel an emotional attachment to the characters, who are often exposed to brutal and unruly circumstances at such a tender age. As we read, we follow Nikki step-by-step. You’ll meet her father, who is well-known in the underground world of drug-trade, as well as all of the customers who come along with it. We come in contact with yet another, batch might I say, of desensitized young girls who fall into the trap of prostitution run by her father. Nikki who, determined to stay away from the cops in fear of going back into child services, hides the homicide of one of the young girls whom her very own father has killed, and we are left to wonder why she is so willing to participate in such criminal acts.
Due to the barren writing style Morris applies to her book, no one is able to really pick apart how Nikki feels, leaving you wanting more. You are left hoping Nikki will show you an ounce of emotion. This young god, as the author would describe her, is quick-witted, and street smart making her almost completely unattainable. She is made to seem emotionless, but definitely not lifeless as her tell-all journeys are spiked with adrenaline. Whether it be her trying heroin for the first time, or her selling it, she won’t disappoint you in seeking a shock-factor. Nikki, who is free as can be, seems unstoppable, young, and reckless, but will she make it out okay, or yet, even alive?
For more of Katherine Faw Morris’s work and writing pieces, visit her website at http://www.katherinefawmorris.com.
Reviewed by Chloe K., TAB@DPL Reader Advisor since 2015.
January 28, 2024
This novel is pure Id. Unraveled spools of raw, impressionistic strokes of rustic reds and yellows in ribbons of unbridled debauchery. There's a granite core to Nikki, our 13-year-old protagonist, though a perversion also resides at this novel's chest cavity as she partakes of her father's illicit activities. The circumstances are sudden and the season a brief but detrimental spiraling of indulgences that careen and oscillate between coarse and austere. These were never folks you were meant to like, only experience. Young God is a startling debut. After I left Katherine Faw's Ultraluminous quite impressed I needed to find her other novel. While the novel moves like it's hopped up on every stimulating narcotic known to western civilization there's this controlled nexus of it, a design that leverages the chaos into a rhythm that is both violent and austere. You bleed through Nikki's world the way you did Travis Bickle's in Taxi Driver or Alex's in A Clockwork Orange, yet Faw also invoked Didion and O'Conner as well with its Hemingway-like discipline of iceberg narrative. You get a glimpse but sometimes that peer through the sliver in the door is just enough.
June 11, 2020
I literally sat down in Indigo and read through this whole novel in about 2 hours, probably because it was less than 200 pages of very little writing. The story is swift, broken and left me wondering what the hell I just read. I usually like novels based on characters like Nikki but this just wasn't for me. I expected much more especially with the raving reviews about it. Thank goodness I didn't buy it. It's not horrible but more could have been done. The author mentioned basing some of her character off of the movie Christine F (You should totally watch it, I did a long time ago and it's amazing) but it just couldn't compare. Novels like lullabies for little criminals better portrays girls in these life circumstances. I get Nikki is supposed to be unreal and she is but not in a good way. She is not a young god but rather a young psychopath that was quite tedious to read about. All in all disappointed. Great concept poor execution. I was just left feeling nothing after reading this. Might try to read again and see if I change my mind, but I really don't want to lol.
March 22, 2020
How do I say this politely?
The book is vile and disgusting. If there was an actual objective to the filth, I would find it breathtakingly unsettling, perhaps.
A classic illustration of a neophyte author desperately wanting to be seen as gritty. The opposite is accomplished.
Nine and twelve made for a perfect start date.
I read to the end for two reasons: the first, because several of the chapters are literally eight words, if not less. The second, because, again, I longed for a lovely, twisted objective.
You may enjoy this book if you're a pedophile who beats off to child porn. If you like reading a meaningless book about a thirteen year old girl idolizing prostitutes, fucking prostitutes, and fucking pimps (all old enough to to be her parents, naturally), then this is a must read!
My time would have been better spent blowing my brains out (hey, I did promise though I'd try to be polite!).
The book is vile and disgusting. If there was an actual objective to the filth, I would find it breathtakingly unsettling, perhaps.
A classic illustration of a neophyte author desperately wanting to be seen as gritty. The opposite is accomplished.
Nine and twelve made for a perfect start date.
I read to the end for two reasons: the first, because several of the chapters are literally eight words, if not less. The second, because, again, I longed for a lovely, twisted objective.
You may enjoy this book if you're a pedophile who beats off to child porn. If you like reading a meaningless book about a thirteen year old girl idolizing prostitutes, fucking prostitutes, and fucking pimps (all old enough to to be her parents, naturally), then this is a must read!
My time would have been better spent blowing my brains out (hey, I did promise though I'd try to be polite!).
July 21, 2014
with the spareness of denis johnson Nobody Move and the sick-fuck psychology of jim thompson Pop. 1280 author morris updates the hard times and no-choices of rural usa outlaws. this one happens to have the protag a 13 year old girl, but she learns fast enough, have no pity, have no mercy, if you want to make it in this world.
May 19, 2014
I was going through some websites and a review of this book popped up. The review was written on a legit website. It claimed that this book was one of the best books ever written and it had a list of reasons why. I read the whole book in less than an hour and THIS book sucks.
Don't be fooled by anything. This book is about a thirteen year old girl who has no remorse or anything. Nothing makes sense. Oh well.
Don't be fooled by anything. This book is about a thirteen year old girl who has no remorse or anything. Nothing makes sense. Oh well.
December 30, 2020
This book took a little over an hour to read.
It was recommended because of the other gritty southern noir books I have read. All of those books were written by authors with talent, this is like a scattershot stream of consciousness, of an illiterate white trash 13 year old. I think this book is supposed to be shocking, but the only shocking thing is, that it ever got published! A Bazooka Joe comic has more depth and a fortune cookie exhibits more writing skills than this book.
It was recommended because of the other gritty southern noir books I have read. All of those books were written by authors with talent, this is like a scattershot stream of consciousness, of an illiterate white trash 13 year old. I think this book is supposed to be shocking, but the only shocking thing is, that it ever got published! A Bazooka Joe comic has more depth and a fortune cookie exhibits more writing skills than this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2014
Well...that was disturbing. I don't think that I have been that uncomfortable while reading a book since I read The Living Dead Girl. There are actually a lot of parallels between the two books and I think they will forever be linked in my mind.
The minimalist nature of the prose is contrasted nicely with the dire and heavy subject matter.
Now I must wash my eyes out with soap...
The minimalist nature of the prose is contrasted nicely with the dire and heavy subject matter.
Now I must wash my eyes out with soap...
July 15, 2015
I don't even know what to say about this. It is raw, and disjointed, and so sad.
It reads like a speeding train. Each page has a different style of set-up. It is filled with foul language and drug use and sexuality but that is not what it is about.
I don't know how to accurately put it into words but I will say I have NEVER read anything like it and probably never will again.
It reads like a speeding train. Each page has a different style of set-up. It is filled with foul language and drug use and sexuality but that is not what it is about.
I don't know how to accurately put it into words but I will say I have NEVER read anything like it and probably never will again.
May 28, 2014
Wow. This is a crazy book. I'm not sure how I feel about it other than that. I really liked the literary style, and the story forced me to finish it in one sitting. Crazy story though. That's the perfect word for it.
February 9, 2015
Crazy Crazy! I wanted to step in and yank Nikki out of the whole situation. So young to be so deep in that environment. I wanted more closure than the ending provided. I wanted a 'rescue' of sorts for her to get her life on track.
June 26, 2016
Hmm. Similar in tone to The Fates Will Find Their Way & The Virgin Suicides, so I can't say I found this as original as I was intended to. Difficult subject matter, not a particularly easy read but I think it was underdeveloped & contrived.
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