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Nicotine
The author of Mislaid returns with a fierce and audaciously funny novel of families—both the ones we’re born into and the ones we create—a story of obsession, idealism, and ownership, centered around a young woman who inherits her bohemian late father's childhood home
Recent business school graduate Penny Baker has rebelled against her family her whole life—by being the conventional one. Her mother, Amalia, was a member of a South American tribe called the Kogi; her much older father, Norm, long ago attained cult-like deity status among a certain cohort of aging hippies while operating a psychedelic “healing center.” And she’s never felt particularly close to her much older half-brothers from Norm’s previous marriage—one wickedly charming and obscenely rich (but mostly just wicked), one a photographer on a distant tropical island.
But all that changes when her father dies, and Penny inherits his childhood home in New Jersey. She goes to investigate the property and finds it not overgrown and abandoned, but rather occupied by a group of friendly anarchist squatters whom she finds unexpectedly charming, and who have renamed the property “Nicotine.” The Nicotine residents (united in defense of smokers’ rights) possess the type of passion and fervor Penny feels she’s desperately lacking, and the other squatter houses in the neighborhood provide a sense of community she has never felt before. She soon moves into a nearby residence, becoming enmeshed in the political fervor and commitment of her fellow squatters.
As the Baker family’s lives begin to converge around the fate of the house now called Nicotine, Penny grows ever bolder and more desperate to protect it—and its residents—until a fateful night when a reckless confrontation between her old family and her new one changes everything.
Nell Zink exquisitely captures the clash between Baby-Boomer idealism and Millennial pragmatism, between the have-nots and want-mores, in a riotous yet tender novel that brilliantly encapsulates our time.
Recent business school graduate Penny Baker has rebelled against her family her whole life—by being the conventional one. Her mother, Amalia, was a member of a South American tribe called the Kogi; her much older father, Norm, long ago attained cult-like deity status among a certain cohort of aging hippies while operating a psychedelic “healing center.” And she’s never felt particularly close to her much older half-brothers from Norm’s previous marriage—one wickedly charming and obscenely rich (but mostly just wicked), one a photographer on a distant tropical island.
But all that changes when her father dies, and Penny inherits his childhood home in New Jersey. She goes to investigate the property and finds it not overgrown and abandoned, but rather occupied by a group of friendly anarchist squatters whom she finds unexpectedly charming, and who have renamed the property “Nicotine.” The Nicotine residents (united in defense of smokers’ rights) possess the type of passion and fervor Penny feels she’s desperately lacking, and the other squatter houses in the neighborhood provide a sense of community she has never felt before. She soon moves into a nearby residence, becoming enmeshed in the political fervor and commitment of her fellow squatters.
As the Baker family’s lives begin to converge around the fate of the house now called Nicotine, Penny grows ever bolder and more desperate to protect it—and its residents—until a fateful night when a reckless confrontation between her old family and her new one changes everything.
Nell Zink exquisitely captures the clash between Baby-Boomer idealism and Millennial pragmatism, between the have-nots and want-mores, in a riotous yet tender novel that brilliantly encapsulates our time.
432 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2016
172 people are currently reading
4980 people want to read
About the author
Nell Zink
15 books409 followersNell Zink was raised in rural Virginia, a setting she draws on in her second novel, Mislaid. She attended Stuart Hall School and the College of William and Mary. In 1993, while living in West Philadelphia, Zink founded a zine called Animal Review, which ran until 1997.
Zink has worked as a secretary at Colgate-Palmolive and as a technical writer in Tel Aviv. She moved to Germany in May 2000, completing a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Tübingen. Zink has been married twice, to US citizen Benjamin Alexander Burck and to Israeli composer and poet Zohar Eitan.
After 15 years writing fiction exclusively for a single pen pal, the Israeli postmodernist Avner Shats, Zink caught the attention of Jonathan Franzen. The two writers began a correspondence.
In early 2012, Zink sent Franzen her collected manuscripts. Franzen tried unsuccessfully to interest publishers in her 1998 novel. It was Franzen’s agent who ultimately negotiated a six-figure publishing deal for Zink’s Mislaid, a novel she has described as “agent bait”.
ZInk's debut, The Wallcreeper, was published by Dorothy, a publishing project in the US in 2014 and named one of 100 Notable Books of 2014 by The New York Times. Zink lives in Bad Belzig, Germany.
Zink has worked as a secretary at Colgate-Palmolive and as a technical writer in Tel Aviv. She moved to Germany in May 2000, completing a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Tübingen. Zink has been married twice, to US citizen Benjamin Alexander Burck and to Israeli composer and poet Zohar Eitan.
After 15 years writing fiction exclusively for a single pen pal, the Israeli postmodernist Avner Shats, Zink caught the attention of Jonathan Franzen. The two writers began a correspondence.
In early 2012, Zink sent Franzen her collected manuscripts. Franzen tried unsuccessfully to interest publishers in her 1998 novel. It was Franzen’s agent who ultimately negotiated a six-figure publishing deal for Zink’s Mislaid, a novel she has described as “agent bait”.
ZInk's debut, The Wallcreeper, was published by Dorothy, a publishing project in the US in 2014 and named one of 100 Notable Books of 2014 by The New York Times. Zink lives in Bad Belzig, Germany.
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July 26, 2018
It's not her gender that's underrepresented. It's her species. Like a dog at a party for birds, or a hip-hopper at a party for Pagan bisexuals.
that quote sums up my reaction to this book in a nutshell - i'm a dog at this bird party, not understanding why everyone's have a good time.
i don't necessarily need to relate to characters in order to enjoy a book; to see myself represented, but i do need them to interest me. and none of these characters interested me in the least; either as individuals, or when they are broken down into their affiliated groups: hippie healers/shamans with their psychotropic drugs and nudity, capitalistic children of those hippies, consumed with laying claim to things: money, people, real estate, the right to success, pompous millennial squatters with their causes and rigorous commitment to representing every niche group conceivable.
i just didn't get this book.
in a way, this reminded me a lot of Purity. there's the obvious similarity in the plot of a young millennial-y woman making her way in the world with her fairly aimless idealism, squatting with people who see themselves as effecting important social changes, drifting into different beds, and many instances of women who are otherwise self-assured and successful being drawn to douchebag men who treat them like shit. and like Purity, there were scenes that made me feel icky: grown man interrupted mid-coitus by a naked 12-year-old girl that leads to anger-salted "playful" nude wrestling, the removal of a young kogi girl from her poverty by a white man 40 years her senior who later marries her, the single-minded attempts to seduce a man claiming to be asexual that get into rape-y territory .
but while i didn't like Purity, i at least understood what it was trying to say as a book. with this one, i think i missed the point. i'm not even sure if this is supposed to be funny or in earnest or what. to me, all the characters were annoying, and seemed like caricatures inviting the readers' scorn, but maybe it's just me finding millennials exhausting.
to me, that's the epitome of a millennial garbage-mind - an adolescent "fuck you" philosophy that views education with suspicion but feels qualified to speak for others on what should be valued. a privileged subset of humanity rejecting their privilege to pay lip service to causes affecting the disenfranchised, who would probably really appreciate that education so casually tossed away. peter pan grown-ups dressing like teenagers.
but maybe that's just me. the tone is slippery - i'm not sure if we are supposed to be rooting for any of these people at all. it's not sharp enough to be a biting satire of all of these different kinds of characters, but it isn't going out of its way to make them sympathetic, either. the tone and the plot are both … wispy. nothing really happens, and when it does, the causation is unformed: people fall in love/obsession with no basis for it, they come and go and leave town and start businesses, and it seems arbitrary and motiveless. which would be fine if it was just the millennial characters, who are kind of defined by their shallow chameleoning and youth and struggles with attention-spans, but it's not. everyone's fairly impulsive and the results are frequently neither tragic nor comic, they're just … flat.
i'll probably be in the minority here with this, since nell zink is one of those authors all the cool kids like, but i just didn't have any reaction to this book at all, really. which is rare, indeed.
come to my blog!
that quote sums up my reaction to this book in a nutshell - i'm a dog at this bird party, not understanding why everyone's have a good time.
i don't necessarily need to relate to characters in order to enjoy a book; to see myself represented, but i do need them to interest me. and none of these characters interested me in the least; either as individuals, or when they are broken down into their affiliated groups: hippie healers/shamans with their psychotropic drugs and nudity, capitalistic children of those hippies, consumed with laying claim to things: money, people, real estate, the right to success, pompous millennial squatters with their causes and rigorous commitment to representing every niche group conceivable.
i just didn't get this book.
in a way, this reminded me a lot of Purity. there's the obvious similarity in the plot of a young millennial-y woman making her way in the world with her fairly aimless idealism, squatting with people who see themselves as effecting important social changes, drifting into different beds, and many instances of women who are otherwise self-assured and successful being drawn to douchebag men who treat them like shit. and like Purity, there were scenes that made me feel icky: grown man interrupted mid-coitus by a naked 12-year-old girl that leads to anger-salted "playful" nude wrestling, the removal of a young kogi girl from her poverty by a white man 40 years her senior who later marries her, the single-minded attempts to seduce a man claiming to be asexual that get into rape-y territory .
but while i didn't like Purity, i at least understood what it was trying to say as a book. with this one, i think i missed the point. i'm not even sure if this is supposed to be funny or in earnest or what. to me, all the characters were annoying, and seemed like caricatures inviting the readers' scorn, but maybe it's just me finding millennials exhausting.
She has curly magenta hair and wears a forties-style bathing suit of plum-colored cotton gabardine with fishnet stockings and Chuck Taylors. She looks ageless and possibly about thirty-five. "My parents wanted me to finish high school and I was like fuck you. It's indoctrination. So I ran away. That's part of why I'm committed to indigenous peoples' right to self-determination. Nobody should have their way of life dictated to them."
"I joined the Navy when I was seventeen," Rufus says. "That's when I started learning about oppression."
"Cool," Penny says approvingly.
to me, that's the epitome of a millennial garbage-mind - an adolescent "fuck you" philosophy that views education with suspicion but feels qualified to speak for others on what should be valued. a privileged subset of humanity rejecting their privilege to pay lip service to causes affecting the disenfranchised, who would probably really appreciate that education so casually tossed away. peter pan grown-ups dressing like teenagers.
but maybe that's just me. the tone is slippery - i'm not sure if we are supposed to be rooting for any of these people at all. it's not sharp enough to be a biting satire of all of these different kinds of characters, but it isn't going out of its way to make them sympathetic, either. the tone and the plot are both … wispy. nothing really happens, and when it does, the causation is unformed: people fall in love/obsession with no basis for it, they come and go and leave town and start businesses, and it seems arbitrary and motiveless. which would be fine if it was just the millennial characters, who are kind of defined by their shallow chameleoning and youth and struggles with attention-spans, but it's not. everyone's fairly impulsive and the results are frequently neither tragic nor comic, they're just … flat.
i'll probably be in the minority here with this, since nell zink is one of those authors all the cool kids like, but i just didn't have any reaction to this book at all, really. which is rare, indeed.
come to my blog!
November 28, 2016
"Maybe women go for your dick because your mouth is full of tobacco".....
I kinda wonder about a female author who grew up in rural Virginia-- now lives near Berlin, Germany....and writes sentences like the above excerpt.
This is my first experience reading Nell Zink. The New York Times review was given to me by a friend when I was gifted this hardcopy book. Much of their review I completely agree with.
But my first thoughts about this book - was "why in the hell would I read this"? I don't smoke - ( I think the book cover is kinda cool) - but really??? "Nicotine"???
Here's - ( a part) of what the New York Times wrote: I agree and couldn't say it better if I tried:
"Nell Zink is a deadpan comedian, her sentences funny yet plump with existential dread.
"Her new one is called "Nicotine", and like her previous books, it's a mess: anarchic in its plot machinations, scrambled in its themes, mostly shallow in its emotions. You want her novels to be so much finer than they are. They're like meals someone fussed over but forgot to put in the oven.
I haven't read previous books - but agree that this book is a mess ---BUT---
I ALSO agree with this next part of the New York Times:
"The strange thing is that you're never tempted to put Ms. Zink's novels aside. They contain so much backspin and topspin that you're alert by the leaping motion".
So... plot doesn't seem to be especially important in this novel. It's shallow - it's funny - it's sexy -and Nell Zink is talented in an odd way.
So -- here is a little more about this 'story'. Yes... haha... there 'is' a story.
Penny Baker is the most conventional member of her weird family. Their lifestyle was chewing coca. That's all they did.... munched it like goats... but that was just the men.
Women cooked and cleaned between totemic clans. That's when Penny's mother blew out of there.
When her mother, Amalia, met her dad, ( a Jewish shamanistic),he was working on building up his clinic for indigenous herbal therapies in Manaus, in Brazil on the Amazon. With her dad's jungle vine, people would trip their brains out - heals nothing -but would puke like there was no tomorrow. Basically he was jump starting people's immune system- called ayahuasca. He would purge people -much like chemo. Her dad's specialty was cancer patients. Penny's parents met in Cartagena. Her mother made it from the Kogi country
from the coast, and her dad found her mother taking care of pigs at the dump.
Amalia was only 13 years old at the time. ( about the same age as Penny's brother Patrick). The father -much older - took Penny's mother in because she was homeless.
Amalia then fell in love with her dad, and her dad made Amalia wait five years. ( which pissed her off)..... perhaps a little like Soon-Yi Previn.
By the time Penny is born, ---(skipping ahead about 20 years), the family is living - hippie style - in a commune on the Hudson River. The year is present day 2016.
When Penny's father, Norm, dies at age 85, (he died a slow death and it was Penny that was at his side daily), she is unemployed...and unmoored by his death...she decides to move into his childhood home in New Jersey and fix it up. To her surprise a group of friendly anarchist squatters are living in the home which they have named
"Nicotine". ( united in defense of smokers rights).
"People walk around fucked/up on illegal drugs, on prescription drugs, on anything they want--nobody cares. But smoke a cigarette, and you're on everybody's shit list".
"You're a baby killer. Same baby who second on a nipple full of phthalates, eating
antibiotic chicken, breathing PCB's, playing in dirt made of tetraethyl lead and drinking straight vodka while it rides a fucking skateboard--when that baby dies at age 86 instead of 90, it's going to be because you lit a cigarette in a public park".
OUCH! Point is the smokers are sick and tired of being ostracized for smoking.
There 'are' characters who believe in second hand smoke as a hazard to ones health - but they are closet smokers.
Penny doesn't have the heart to kick the smoking residence out of her dads house. She moves into a nearby residence.... and then becomes involved with the smoking community at the Nicotine house.
The rest of her family - her mother and half brother want to evict the squatters.
The way this story comes to and end-- a surprise --is very satisfying.
The characters and dialogue are what kept me reading this book.
Penny falls for Rob- the asexual man who lives in the house.....
Matt her older half brother designs garbage trucks....
Smoking jokes, sex, crass, and quirky....
This is a social satire --which was actually more 'wacky-enjoyable' than I thought it was going to be!
I kinda wonder about a female author who grew up in rural Virginia-- now lives near Berlin, Germany....and writes sentences like the above excerpt.
This is my first experience reading Nell Zink. The New York Times review was given to me by a friend when I was gifted this hardcopy book. Much of their review I completely agree with.
But my first thoughts about this book - was "why in the hell would I read this"? I don't smoke - ( I think the book cover is kinda cool) - but really??? "Nicotine"???
Here's - ( a part) of what the New York Times wrote: I agree and couldn't say it better if I tried:
"Nell Zink is a deadpan comedian, her sentences funny yet plump with existential dread.
"Her new one is called "Nicotine", and like her previous books, it's a mess: anarchic in its plot machinations, scrambled in its themes, mostly shallow in its emotions. You want her novels to be so much finer than they are. They're like meals someone fussed over but forgot to put in the oven.
I haven't read previous books - but agree that this book is a mess ---BUT---
I ALSO agree with this next part of the New York Times:
"The strange thing is that you're never tempted to put Ms. Zink's novels aside. They contain so much backspin and topspin that you're alert by the leaping motion".
So... plot doesn't seem to be especially important in this novel. It's shallow - it's funny - it's sexy -and Nell Zink is talented in an odd way.
So -- here is a little more about this 'story'. Yes... haha... there 'is' a story.
Penny Baker is the most conventional member of her weird family. Their lifestyle was chewing coca. That's all they did.... munched it like goats... but that was just the men.
Women cooked and cleaned between totemic clans. That's when Penny's mother blew out of there.
When her mother, Amalia, met her dad, ( a Jewish shamanistic),he was working on building up his clinic for indigenous herbal therapies in Manaus, in Brazil on the Amazon. With her dad's jungle vine, people would trip their brains out - heals nothing -but would puke like there was no tomorrow. Basically he was jump starting people's immune system- called ayahuasca. He would purge people -much like chemo. Her dad's specialty was cancer patients. Penny's parents met in Cartagena. Her mother made it from the Kogi country
from the coast, and her dad found her mother taking care of pigs at the dump.
Amalia was only 13 years old at the time. ( about the same age as Penny's brother Patrick). The father -much older - took Penny's mother in because she was homeless.
Amalia then fell in love with her dad, and her dad made Amalia wait five years. ( which pissed her off)..... perhaps a little like Soon-Yi Previn.
By the time Penny is born, ---(skipping ahead about 20 years), the family is living - hippie style - in a commune on the Hudson River. The year is present day 2016.
When Penny's father, Norm, dies at age 85, (he died a slow death and it was Penny that was at his side daily), she is unemployed...and unmoored by his death...she decides to move into his childhood home in New Jersey and fix it up. To her surprise a group of friendly anarchist squatters are living in the home which they have named
"Nicotine". ( united in defense of smokers rights).
"People walk around fucked/up on illegal drugs, on prescription drugs, on anything they want--nobody cares. But smoke a cigarette, and you're on everybody's shit list".
"You're a baby killer. Same baby who second on a nipple full of phthalates, eating
antibiotic chicken, breathing PCB's, playing in dirt made of tetraethyl lead and drinking straight vodka while it rides a fucking skateboard--when that baby dies at age 86 instead of 90, it's going to be because you lit a cigarette in a public park".
OUCH! Point is the smokers are sick and tired of being ostracized for smoking.
There 'are' characters who believe in second hand smoke as a hazard to ones health - but they are closet smokers.
Penny doesn't have the heart to kick the smoking residence out of her dads house. She moves into a nearby residence.... and then becomes involved with the smoking community at the Nicotine house.
The rest of her family - her mother and half brother want to evict the squatters.
The way this story comes to and end-- a surprise --is very satisfying.
The characters and dialogue are what kept me reading this book.
Penny falls for Rob- the asexual man who lives in the house.....
Matt her older half brother designs garbage trucks....
Smoking jokes, sex, crass, and quirky....
This is a social satire --which was actually more 'wacky-enjoyable' than I thought it was going to be!
February 8, 2017
“She wills her body to be equally wraithlike. Not sodden, not heavy, not dead, but filled with crackling, electric life, like a stale Marlboro on fire.”
Nell Zink’s “Nicotine” is a social satire on a grand scale. It invokes and satirizes the philosophies of shamanism, pragmatism, and anarchy. It begins with Amalia at age 13 being “adopted” by Norm from a garbage heap in Cartagena, Columbia. From there, the novel flash forwards to Amalia’s daughter, Penny, at age 12 at her father’s psychadelic healing center. Her mother is now “married” to Norm and Penny has two older half brothers, who happen to be older than her mother.
When Penny’s father falls ill and is on hospice, Penny is the primary caregiver. It is said by many of the Shamanist followers at the funeral services that Penny always had that spiritual connection like Norm.
Upon her father’s death, Penny, now in her 20s (a recent business school grad) thinks she will take over his childhood home which is inhabited by squatters, anarchists that are united by their love of nicotine. Hence, the the name “Nicotine” for the house they have squatted. There are many houses in this area of New Jersey being squatted by millennials. Penny falls in love with one of the squatters, who happens to be asexual, and decides to live amongst them. Her brother, Matt, decides he will kick out the squatters and he, too, falls in love with one of the squatters.
Amalia (Penny's mother) initially declares her love for Matt (Penny's half-brother) which is not returned. However, this brings up questions as to what happened between them when they were younger. Could Matt be Penny’s father? Amalia, too, goes to try to kick out the squatters, and falls in love with one of them.
Matt is a huge sociopath and gets what he deserves when he lands in a huge amount of shit. Everyone and everything gets confused and turned on its head. “Nicotine” becomes the “Norman Baker Center” bringing together the Norman Baker followers and millennials alike.
This one was tough for me to connect to. I appreciated the social satire and the brilliance of the author, but honestly did not feel too much for the characters. It felt like all of the ideas were thrown together in a slurry and the result was interesting and at times amusing, but just did not seem as polished as it could have been.
Thank you to net galley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
For discussion questions, please see http://www.book-chatter.com/?p=626.
Nell Zink’s “Nicotine” is a social satire on a grand scale. It invokes and satirizes the philosophies of shamanism, pragmatism, and anarchy. It begins with Amalia at age 13 being “adopted” by Norm from a garbage heap in Cartagena, Columbia. From there, the novel flash forwards to Amalia’s daughter, Penny, at age 12 at her father’s psychadelic healing center. Her mother is now “married” to Norm and Penny has two older half brothers, who happen to be older than her mother.
When Penny’s father falls ill and is on hospice, Penny is the primary caregiver. It is said by many of the Shamanist followers at the funeral services that Penny always had that spiritual connection like Norm.
Upon her father’s death, Penny, now in her 20s (a recent business school grad) thinks she will take over his childhood home which is inhabited by squatters, anarchists that are united by their love of nicotine. Hence, the the name “Nicotine” for the house they have squatted. There are many houses in this area of New Jersey being squatted by millennials. Penny falls in love with one of the squatters, who happens to be asexual, and decides to live amongst them. Her brother, Matt, decides he will kick out the squatters and he, too, falls in love with one of the squatters.
Amalia (Penny's mother) initially declares her love for Matt (Penny's half-brother) which is not returned. However, this brings up questions as to what happened between them when they were younger. Could Matt be Penny’s father? Amalia, too, goes to try to kick out the squatters, and falls in love with one of them.
Matt is a huge sociopath and gets what he deserves when he lands in a huge amount of shit. Everyone and everything gets confused and turned on its head. “Nicotine” becomes the “Norman Baker Center” bringing together the Norman Baker followers and millennials alike.
This one was tough for me to connect to. I appreciated the social satire and the brilliance of the author, but honestly did not feel too much for the characters. It felt like all of the ideas were thrown together in a slurry and the result was interesting and at times amusing, but just did not seem as polished as it could have been.
Thank you to net galley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
For discussion questions, please see http://www.book-chatter.com/?p=626.
September 19, 2016
Although I did not love Nicotine, reading some of the negative reviews it's received makes me feel instantly defensive, because I do think it's a much cleverer and better-written book than its detractors are giving it credit for. Set in a series of New Jersey squats, with a cast of anarchists, shamanic healers and assorted polyamorous fuck-ups, Nicotine may well depend, for its impact on readers, on their predispositions towards millennials and the current trends of ‘youth culture’. Zink's steer on how we should feel about her characters is subtle – everything is done through conversation and internal dialogue – and consequently many people seem to be finding it hard to place the tone.
I loved the tone most of all though. I'd describe it as one of affectionate scepticism – she sympathises with these people, they are never mocked or ridiculed; but at the same time it's clear, at least I think so, that we are often being invited to laugh at the absurdities of their lifestyle. Often this sends the book in directions that are diametrically opposed to current ideas of correctness. An asexual character, for instance, ends up ‘converted’ by the right partner, and confesses that his identity was only a cover for his concerns about his penis size. I imagine if you're actually asexual, this twist would really piss you off. Then again, what do I know – maybe this kind of poseurism is a big problem in the asexual community. Presumably they don't have much else to get worked-up about.
More obviously parodic is a scene where our protagonist Penny visits a potluck at a radical-feminist squat, only to find that everyone else there is trans. Her friend just shrugs. ‘Hey, I miss women feminists, too.’
The book's title is a clue to this strain of bloody-mindedness, or whatever they call it in American English, in Zink's approach. And yet despite it all, her concerns are not really political: that's just window-dressing, and motivated much more by amusement than by anger. The subject of the novel is interpersonal, rather than political, relationships – the questions of why people are attracted to other people, of whether those who detach themselves from social conventions find it easier or harder to forge meaningful connections with friends, lovers, family members.
Probably there are novels in existence by actual anarchist authors, but this isn't one. This is not insider literature. It's a novel that gets involved but that always observes its characters from a slight distance. Think, for instance, of the difference between William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. If you don't have any interest in these characters, then you probably won't care for Nicotine, however interesting its prose style (just as many people feel about Kerouac).
Personally, I love this point of view (and, having chosen at various times in the past to live with a British Army deserter, a Vietnam vet, and a Colombian money-launderer, I strongly relate to the desire to be close to people whom, on some level, I find bizarre or incomprehensible – to be close to them and to keep a pen and paper handy).
The dialogue in here is razor-sharp and very lightly done. It reminded me a lot of Thomas Pynchon, and it wasn't the only thing – the guilty sexual relationship between a young hippy chick and a sadistic capitalist is a paranoid-fantasy pairing straight out of one of Pynchon's novels. What I did miss a little, though, was that sense of fun that was so powerful in The Wallcreeper. Here, Zink is taking herself a little more seriously, and although her writing can be as snappy as ever I felt a little nostalgic for that naked enjoyment that was on show in her debut.
I loved the tone most of all though. I'd describe it as one of affectionate scepticism – she sympathises with these people, they are never mocked or ridiculed; but at the same time it's clear, at least I think so, that we are often being invited to laugh at the absurdities of their lifestyle. Often this sends the book in directions that are diametrically opposed to current ideas of correctness. An asexual character, for instance, ends up ‘converted’ by the right partner, and confesses that his identity was only a cover for his concerns about his penis size. I imagine if you're actually asexual, this twist would really piss you off. Then again, what do I know – maybe this kind of poseurism is a big problem in the asexual community. Presumably they don't have much else to get worked-up about.
More obviously parodic is a scene where our protagonist Penny visits a potluck at a radical-feminist squat, only to find that everyone else there is trans. Her friend just shrugs. ‘Hey, I miss women feminists, too.’
She drifts along the buffet, looking at the food, sneaking glances at the people. Between the peach fuzz and the push-up bras, it reminds her of junior high. People seem uneasy and a little bit too excited about their new and unfamiliar bodies. She hears the sound of maternal instincts being vigorously applied to cats on the Internet. Another conversation, pitched deeper, revolves around grants available to emerging filmmakers. It all seems rather gender-polarized.
She searches in vain for her favorite feminine gender (tomboy).
To the extent that she can pull it off, her gender is babe. But at Stayfree her babe outfit (long hair, big shirt, leggings, flats) makes her feel like an interloper—like some rude woman-born-woman intent on boycotting femininity because she can take it for granted. The girly-girls on hand have spared no pains. They are as polished as knights in armor, bodies pierced, coiffed, tattooed, shoehorned into heels and dresses. The manly-men are gruff and earnest in word and deed. She's the only babe in sight. She lacks an audience. It's not her gender that's underrepresented. It's her species. Like a dog at a party for birds, or a hip-hopper at a party for Pagan bisexuals.
The book's title is a clue to this strain of bloody-mindedness, or whatever they call it in American English, in Zink's approach. And yet despite it all, her concerns are not really political: that's just window-dressing, and motivated much more by amusement than by anger. The subject of the novel is interpersonal, rather than political, relationships – the questions of why people are attracted to other people, of whether those who detach themselves from social conventions find it easier or harder to forge meaningful connections with friends, lovers, family members.
Probably there are novels in existence by actual anarchist authors, but this isn't one. This is not insider literature. It's a novel that gets involved but that always observes its characters from a slight distance. Think, for instance, of the difference between William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. If you don't have any interest in these characters, then you probably won't care for Nicotine, however interesting its prose style (just as many people feel about Kerouac).
Personally, I love this point of view (and, having chosen at various times in the past to live with a British Army deserter, a Vietnam vet, and a Colombian money-launderer, I strongly relate to the desire to be close to people whom, on some level, I find bizarre or incomprehensible – to be close to them and to keep a pen and paper handy).
The dialogue in here is razor-sharp and very lightly done. It reminded me a lot of Thomas Pynchon, and it wasn't the only thing – the guilty sexual relationship between a young hippy chick and a sadistic capitalist is a paranoid-fantasy pairing straight out of one of Pynchon's novels. What I did miss a little, though, was that sense of fun that was so powerful in The Wallcreeper. Here, Zink is taking herself a little more seriously, and although her writing can be as snappy as ever I felt a little nostalgic for that naked enjoyment that was on show in her debut.
September 1, 2025
It’s been a few days since I finished reading this book and most of what I remember getting from it is; anarchists fuck (if they want to).
This book was recommended to me because I loved The Free People’s Village and I can sort of see why, there are anarchists and shoddy landlords in both! Ok there’s more to it than that but where one had memorable character growth and a bittersweet story the other is a story with no plot and is all about the vibes. Nicotine has its moments, but the prose wasn’t enough to make up for the lack of plot and the humor was mostly lost on me.
This book was recommended to me because I loved The Free People’s Village and I can sort of see why, there are anarchists and shoddy landlords in both! Ok there’s more to it than that but where one had memorable character growth and a bittersweet story the other is a story with no plot and is all about the vibes. Nicotine has its moments, but the prose wasn’t enough to make up for the lack of plot and the humor was mostly lost on me.
October 24, 2018
I loved the beginning. The story of Norm dying and Penny's grief had me hooked, I was so excited for this book. Then the tone completely changed when she got to Nicotine. I'm going to be frank here - and maybe I'm just not trendy/worldly/hipstery enough to understand this book - but quite honestly, I had no clue what the f*** the characters were talking about half the time. I found this book to be very annoying. A lot of reviews are saying people would've enjoyed this better if they were younger. I'm 26 and I was irritated by these characters the entire time. It's a shame too, because this novel started out SO GOOD!
December 11, 2016
3.5 stars
Well that was odd. This is a strange book with an eccentric cast of characters. It starts out weird and just keeps getting weirder. It was hard to related to but at the same time there was something about it that I really liked. I was strangely drawn to these misfits in a way I can't quite put my finger on. I read this well into the night because I was curious what was going to happen. I often don't like the ending in books like this but I thought this one was satisfying and well done. This is not a book I would have picked on my own. It was a BotM choice a few months ago and I considered it then but passed then it showed up on the Tournament of Books longlist so I decided to give it a try. It's probably not for everyone but I found it to be a fun fast read.
Well that was odd. This is a strange book with an eccentric cast of characters. It starts out weird and just keeps getting weirder. It was hard to related to but at the same time there was something about it that I really liked. I was strangely drawn to these misfits in a way I can't quite put my finger on. I read this well into the night because I was curious what was going to happen. I often don't like the ending in books like this but I thought this one was satisfying and well done. This is not a book I would have picked on my own. It was a BotM choice a few months ago and I considered it then but passed then it showed up on the Tournament of Books longlist so I decided to give it a try. It's probably not for everyone but I found it to be a fun fast read.
February 6, 2017
While I was reading this book, I merely thought it was sloppily written and lazily edited. My example was this shit:
"'A police car just pulled up,' she said, looking up to see a police car pulling up."
I thought that was as bad as it got. But when I got to the end, I realized it's really, really fucking stupid. Stupid is actually the best it could be. If the author is not stupid, then she's outstandingly cynical and cruel, and fucking with the segment of her audience that reads sappy romantic shit and thinks it's how relationships are supposed to work.
At one point early in the book, the main character, Penny, puzzles over her family's blasé reaction to her father's death by reasoning that they are all sociopaths. At the risk of overstating it, I feel like the author is the one who's a sociopath. The ending of this book will seem romantic and fulfilling to many while those of us who've been in this kind of destructive relationship see clearly what's going to happen. The author, however, seems to be either deliberately obtuse or cruelly manipulative.
I guess if you loved "Gone Girl," and you hate women, you'd love this book. So there's that.
"'A police car just pulled up,' she said, looking up to see a police car pulling up."
I thought that was as bad as it got. But when I got to the end, I realized it's really, really fucking stupid. Stupid is actually the best it could be. If the author is not stupid, then she's outstandingly cynical and cruel, and fucking with the segment of her audience that reads sappy romantic shit and thinks it's how relationships are supposed to work.
At one point early in the book, the main character, Penny, puzzles over her family's blasé reaction to her father's death by reasoning that they are all sociopaths. At the risk of overstating it, I feel like the author is the one who's a sociopath. The ending of this book will seem romantic and fulfilling to many while those of us who've been in this kind of destructive relationship see clearly what's going to happen. The author, however, seems to be either deliberately obtuse or cruelly manipulative.
I guess if you loved "Gone Girl," and you hate women, you'd love this book. So there's that.
November 29, 2016
Well... I was a bit conflicted with this one, and I needed to take a couple days to process my feeling about it.
I feel like I am the intended audience of this, being young and having squatted and taken part of the squat culture. I feel like this book was definitely watered down from the real eccentrics that live in squats.
Our main character Penny comes from money, and isn't really an activist but gets a room at a house anyway. She ends up working a bank while still squatting... That is just a big sack of no. This would never happen. Home girl is doing COMMODITIES TRADING FOR A BANK, they are not going to let you squat... The author seemed a bit out of touch in terms to that. Everyone was pretty yuppie, and that just isn't true for most squats. They are a lot dirtier, grimier, and convicted. They backed out of an action because they were intimidated because of someone's parents.
These are squats that are supposed to be for ACTIVISTS, and are assumingly prepared to go to PRISON. So watered down.
Another annoying this is Zink wrote the story assuming Hillary won the election, and Trump was just a 'haha' candidate. Well sugar, she didn't, and you're fluffy ass 'radicals' don't make sense in a Trump era anymore so... good job.
When I was reading this book I was fluctuating from 3 stars, but the more I read, the more shallow the characters became and I had a hard time caring about them, and their narcissism is just... painful. The abusive relationship that ruins a squat, yet is the close of the book. Get me out of here.
Oh! And we have a main character who is supposed to be asexual, but it turns out that he is just self conscious because he has a small penis. GIVE ME A BREAK.
Really, really hard to overlook. This novel had a chance at being good, and the plot was over all interesting and engaging, but the characters are terrible, unreliable, unpractical squatters, and the activism is so lackluster.
Maybe this pseudo liberal bullshit could have passed if Hilary would have won, and we could have continued living in our bubble, but shit just got real post November 8th and we don't have room for fake activists characters in fiction literature when the world around just got a bit more dire.
2 stars.
I feel like I am the intended audience of this, being young and having squatted and taken part of the squat culture. I feel like this book was definitely watered down from the real eccentrics that live in squats.
Our main character Penny comes from money, and isn't really an activist but gets a room at a house anyway. She ends up working a bank while still squatting... That is just a big sack of no. This would never happen. Home girl is doing COMMODITIES TRADING FOR A BANK, they are not going to let you squat... The author seemed a bit out of touch in terms to that. Everyone was pretty yuppie, and that just isn't true for most squats. They are a lot dirtier, grimier, and convicted. They backed out of an action because they were intimidated because of someone's parents.
These are squats that are supposed to be for ACTIVISTS, and are assumingly prepared to go to PRISON. So watered down.
Another annoying this is Zink wrote the story assuming Hillary won the election, and Trump was just a 'haha' candidate. Well sugar, she didn't, and you're fluffy ass 'radicals' don't make sense in a Trump era anymore so... good job.
When I was reading this book I was fluctuating from 3 stars, but the more I read, the more shallow the characters became and I had a hard time caring about them, and their narcissism is just... painful. The abusive relationship that ruins a squat, yet is the close of the book. Get me out of here.
Oh! And we have a main character who is supposed to be asexual, but it turns out that he is just self conscious because he has a small penis. GIVE ME A BREAK.
Really, really hard to overlook. This novel had a chance at being good, and the plot was over all interesting and engaging, but the characters are terrible, unreliable, unpractical squatters, and the activism is so lackluster.
Maybe this pseudo liberal bullshit could have passed if Hilary would have won, and we could have continued living in our bubble, but shit just got real post November 8th and we don't have room for fake activists characters in fiction literature when the world around just got a bit more dire.
2 stars.
November 7, 2016
I'm not even sure where to start with this one. It's definitely one of the weirder books I've read lately, filled with a truly eccentric cast of characters.
Penny is an aimless young college graduate coming to terms with her father's recent death. Her family is what you would call non-traditional, to put it lightly. Her mother is a former member of a South American tribe and her much older father gained fame operating a psychedelic healing center near that same region. Oh yeah, and her mother actually started out as her father's adopted daughter when he rescued her when she was just 13.
Yeah, it's like that. Penny also has two much older half-brothers, one of whom (Matt) is a selfish sociopath. As you can imagine, all of this comes to a head when Penny's father dies and they're left trying to determine who has the rights to his possessions.
Penny, recently evicted from her NYC apartment, agrees to fix up her father's rundown old childhood home in New Jersey. But when she arrives, she finds that it's occupied by a group of anarchist squatters united by their status as smokers. (None of the other anarchists in the community will house them.)
Penny quickly befriends this odd group, and falls in love with one of its members, an ostensibly asexual man named Rob. And with Matt intent on reclaiming the house from the squatters and gentrifying the area, Penny finds herself trying to prevent this from happening.
It really is a weird book. Beneath all the strangeness and the aimless pseudo-plot lies the real meat of the book: Penny's grief over her father's death, her need to uncover some of her family's craziest secrets and her journey toward finding her place in the world.
It's definitely interesting and original and I'm glad to have read it, but I didn't love it. Zink is clearly a brilliant writer, yet I often thought that her prose was too purposely opaque. It's simultaneously clever and profound, zany and irreverent, and while I appreciate this combination, I found that in this case, it kept the smart points that she was trying to make always just a little too far out of reach.
Penny is an aimless young college graduate coming to terms with her father's recent death. Her family is what you would call non-traditional, to put it lightly. Her mother is a former member of a South American tribe and her much older father gained fame operating a psychedelic healing center near that same region. Oh yeah, and her mother actually started out as her father's adopted daughter when he rescued her when she was just 13.
Yeah, it's like that. Penny also has two much older half-brothers, one of whom (Matt) is a selfish sociopath. As you can imagine, all of this comes to a head when Penny's father dies and they're left trying to determine who has the rights to his possessions.
Penny, recently evicted from her NYC apartment, agrees to fix up her father's rundown old childhood home in New Jersey. But when she arrives, she finds that it's occupied by a group of anarchist squatters united by their status as smokers. (None of the other anarchists in the community will house them.)
Penny quickly befriends this odd group, and falls in love with one of its members, an ostensibly asexual man named Rob. And with Matt intent on reclaiming the house from the squatters and gentrifying the area, Penny finds herself trying to prevent this from happening.
It really is a weird book. Beneath all the strangeness and the aimless pseudo-plot lies the real meat of the book: Penny's grief over her father's death, her need to uncover some of her family's craziest secrets and her journey toward finding her place in the world.
It's definitely interesting and original and I'm glad to have read it, but I didn't love it. Zink is clearly a brilliant writer, yet I often thought that her prose was too purposely opaque. It's simultaneously clever and profound, zany and irreverent, and while I appreciate this combination, I found that in this case, it kept the smart points that she was trying to make always just a little too far out of reach.
October 8, 2016
Review to come
Notes: loved the beginning, weird, brutal, honest sad portrayal of the devastating effects of a cruel disease on the sufferer and those around them. Initially thought would be a 4-5 star....then hit the main plot of the story and it just lost it for me. Too weird, abstract and unbelievable characterisation for me. .. Will still give other books a try because of the beginning of the novel.
Notes: loved the beginning, weird, brutal, honest sad portrayal of the devastating effects of a cruel disease on the sufferer and those around them. Initially thought would be a 4-5 star....then hit the main plot of the story and it just lost it for me. Too weird, abstract and unbelievable characterisation for me. .. Will still give other books a try because of the beginning of the novel.
June 10, 2016
This is a book about finding order in chaos, accepting idiosyncrasies of individuals and making peace with your family - both biological and fraternal.
Penny is the strait laced,odd one out in her completely unorthodox, atypical family. She has managed to dodge their eccentricities until her dad, a hippie healer ( read: drug dealer) who treats terminally ill older patient, dies.
She becomes the sole heir to his childhood house which she soon realizes has been abandoned for long enough to be turned into a frat house slash community center by squatters. They have rechristened the house Nicotine. The house is inhabited by quirky individuals with unconventional names like Sorry and Jazz. She soon acclimates to their whacky lifestyle, which serves as a handy distraction from her recent bereavement. Penny's crush on an asexual guy, Rob, who lives at Nicotine, sets in motion a crazy chain of events including bizarre liaisons between Penny's roommate, her brother and her mother (no, that was not a typo).
Nicotine started out as an offbeat, funny story about a dysfunctional family that unravels into an account of living life off the grid, with quirky activists, debauchery and residents' madcap episodes thrown in for good measure.
I enjoyed it, although it did lose steam in the latter half. A quick, entertaining read. I wish it had a more 'show,don't tell' approach which would have given the prose more of an edge.
Thanks to 4th Estate and Edelweiss for providing me an advance proof copy.
Penny is the strait laced,odd one out in her completely unorthodox, atypical family. She has managed to dodge their eccentricities until her dad, a hippie healer ( read: drug dealer) who treats terminally ill older patient, dies.
She becomes the sole heir to his childhood house which she soon realizes has been abandoned for long enough to be turned into a frat house slash community center by squatters. They have rechristened the house Nicotine. The house is inhabited by quirky individuals with unconventional names like Sorry and Jazz. She soon acclimates to their whacky lifestyle, which serves as a handy distraction from her recent bereavement. Penny's crush on an asexual guy, Rob, who lives at Nicotine, sets in motion a crazy chain of events including bizarre liaisons between Penny's roommate, her brother and her mother (no, that was not a typo).
Nicotine started out as an offbeat, funny story about a dysfunctional family that unravels into an account of living life off the grid, with quirky activists, debauchery and residents' madcap episodes thrown in for good measure.
I enjoyed it, although it did lose steam in the latter half. A quick, entertaining read. I wish it had a more 'show,don't tell' approach which would have given the prose more of an edge.
Thanks to 4th Estate and Edelweiss for providing me an advance proof copy.
September 4, 2017
3.5 stars.
Super clever and pretty intelligent throughout. I don't know that I really got what this book was trying to convey--capitalism as potency? Resistance as fear or avoidance?--but the dialogue was snappy and the writing was often sharp. Probably the most unrealistic part for me was the idea that affinity for tobacco would ever be a sufficient banner under which a group could gather. I know privileged people grieving their perceived marginalization is very much en vogue these days, but are we really expected to believe it?
Super clever and pretty intelligent throughout. I don't know that I really got what this book was trying to convey--capitalism as potency? Resistance as fear or avoidance?--but the dialogue was snappy and the writing was often sharp. Probably the most unrealistic part for me was the idea that affinity for tobacco would ever be a sufficient banner under which a group could gather. I know privileged people grieving their perceived marginalization is very much en vogue these days, but are we really expected to believe it?
Read
September 16, 2016I could say so many things, but instead I'll just say that this was the best novel I've read all year, and that I'd be truly shocked to read another one as good anytime soon.
June 15, 2017
The Wallcreeper was one of my favourite novels of 2016. I described Zink’s distinctive prose style as ‘clipped, ironic sincerity’ for want of a better term and enjoyed it very much. Mislaid did not reach the same level of taut hilarity and ‘Nicotine’ was even further towards pedestrian. The Wallcreeper somehow managed to be sharp and memorable despite the ostensible central topic of marriage, whereas with ‘Nicotine’ I fear Zink is becoming conventional. Her writing remains engaging, and at no point did I consider giving up on the book. However it isn’t anywhere near as interesting as either of her two previous novels, in my view. If anything, the message seems to be that beneath their veneer of diverse variety, everyone is extremely tedious and heterosexual and trapped in outdated gender roles. Even if that were true, I wouldn’t particularly want to read about it.
It’s especially annoying in novels when heterosexuality is dismissed as so passé by the hip characters, yet the entire plot revolves around it. The title should really be ‘Heterosexuality: A Novel’. It’s a topic I’m very bored with. The incidents and plot threads regarding property rights, community organisation, and family dynamics were all brushed aside for more heterosexuality. As part of this, I found the depiction of the two main male characters very troubling.
In short, I was disappointed as I know from The Wallcreeper that Zink is capable of utter brilliance. ‘Nicotine’ just wasn’t funny (where were the non sequiturs I liked so much?) and the main relationships were unpleasant. It has a good sense of momentum and place, some well-observed background characters, and the odd excellent set-piece scene, though. Hopefully Zink’s next work will be back to the very high standard she set with her first.
It’s especially annoying in novels when heterosexuality is dismissed as so passé by the hip characters, yet the entire plot revolves around it. The title should really be ‘Heterosexuality: A Novel’. It’s a topic I’m very bored with. The incidents and plot threads regarding property rights, community organisation, and family dynamics were all brushed aside for more heterosexuality. As part of this, I found the depiction of the two main male characters very troubling.
In short, I was disappointed as I know from The Wallcreeper that Zink is capable of utter brilliance. ‘Nicotine’ just wasn’t funny (where were the non sequiturs I liked so much?) and the main relationships were unpleasant. It has a good sense of momentum and place, some well-observed background characters, and the odd excellent set-piece scene, though. Hopefully Zink’s next work will be back to the very high standard she set with her first.
April 19, 2020
I absolutely hated this book. (Though I'd like to point out that I finished it; I never rate a book I don't finish.) The characters, meant -- I think -- to be quirky but lovable, seemed only to be weird, damaged, and in some cases, without any redeeming social value. Come to think of it, that would also be a good description of the plot. I felt no kinship with anyone in the book, and the story was tedious (though also alarming in an "if anyone actually behaves this way, society is going to hell in a hand basket" sort of way.) I can't imagine why Book of the Month Club chose this as a featured selection, as I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know.
January 6, 2017
Each of Nell Zink's works I've read begin with me questioning why I'm reading this piece of trash in the first place, but I consistently find myself won over by her novels' final pages. At points disturbing, touching, philosophical, and hilarious, Nicotine falls in line with Zink's previous ensemble cast'd, truly offbeat novels. As always, I'm excited to read more of her work. Zink is a true freak.
September 21, 2020
This book was the most horrible one I have ever read. It somehow felt convoluted and shallow at the same time and I didn't even know that could happen. The portrayal of asexuality was invalidating and harmful. The characters were seemingly designed to have typical human flaws and quirks, but were streched to the point where they were no longer realistic. Nobody deserves to suffer through this book.
November 28, 2016
This is a fun, fast read. More suited for 20-somethings than settled-in folks, but it's cute (if your definition of cute can include lots of graphic scenes and language. Mine can.) I didn't think the ending was as satisfying as the BOTM judge seemed to think, but it wasn't a bad ending.
May 17, 2022
This book is the epitome of everything wrong with modern literature: a dry, boring, safe, preachy, creation that is churned out by creative writing students all over. It's not bad per se. It is, instead, sad. It is sad that a book so utterly uninventive, so predictable, a book that follows every rule handed down by every untalented creative writing teacher, would be showered with awards, its author treated like the second coming of actually talented writers from the 90s.
DFW dared people to, "envision if you dare a careful, accomplished national literature, mistake-free, seamless as fine linoleum; fiction preoccupied with norm as value instead of value’s servant; fiction by academics who were taught by academics and teach aspiring academics... workshop assembly lines could, eventually, lower all standards, precipitate a broad-level literary mediocrity, fictional equivalents of what Donald Hall calls “The McPoem.”... we might well end up with a McStory chain that would put Ray Kroc to shame." Nicotine is a McStory. Something that could be produced on the assembly line of novels that follow the same tired, rote, played-out formula, only to be heaped with praise by a literary establishment that has lost all ability to appreciate actually difficult, actually interesting, fiction, fiction that attempts to do something new instead of merely retracing paths so well worn you can predicate the next line of the book with striking accuracy before you even read it.
But I'm sure this book will continue to get handed to creative writing students everywhere, held up as the paragon of serious modern fiction. It will be taught, used as an example of how to write dialogue, how to use scene, how to "show not tell," how to construct characters that deal with modern political debates in the most hamfisted way possible, how to describe setting in the proper way, how to write stories that will get published in The New Yorker and land you a nice comfortable teaching job where you can beat the creativity out of any students unlucky enough to stumble into your class thinking they will actually be given a space to do something interesting.
If this is the pinnacle of serious literary fiction, we are unbelievably fucked.
(The cover is cool though)
DFW dared people to, "envision if you dare a careful, accomplished national literature, mistake-free, seamless as fine linoleum; fiction preoccupied with norm as value instead of value’s servant; fiction by academics who were taught by academics and teach aspiring academics... workshop assembly lines could, eventually, lower all standards, precipitate a broad-level literary mediocrity, fictional equivalents of what Donald Hall calls “The McPoem.”... we might well end up with a McStory chain that would put Ray Kroc to shame." Nicotine is a McStory. Something that could be produced on the assembly line of novels that follow the same tired, rote, played-out formula, only to be heaped with praise by a literary establishment that has lost all ability to appreciate actually difficult, actually interesting, fiction, fiction that attempts to do something new instead of merely retracing paths so well worn you can predicate the next line of the book with striking accuracy before you even read it.
But I'm sure this book will continue to get handed to creative writing students everywhere, held up as the paragon of serious modern fiction. It will be taught, used as an example of how to write dialogue, how to use scene, how to "show not tell," how to construct characters that deal with modern political debates in the most hamfisted way possible, how to describe setting in the proper way, how to write stories that will get published in The New Yorker and land you a nice comfortable teaching job where you can beat the creativity out of any students unlucky enough to stumble into your class thinking they will actually be given a space to do something interesting.
If this is the pinnacle of serious literary fiction, we are unbelievably fucked.
(The cover is cool though)
October 16, 2024
I have heard it said: "I don't like smoking. I just smoke because I'm addicted to it."
That is how I felt reading Nicotine. At times, I felt the story relied too much on variations of the same theme (millenial behaviour) and it got a bit tiring. Still, I could not stop reading. And every couple of pages I would giggle to myself.
Want my next Nell Zink fix.
(Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.)
That is how I felt reading Nicotine. At times, I felt the story relied too much on variations of the same theme (millenial behaviour) and it got a bit tiring. Still, I could not stop reading. And every couple of pages I would giggle to myself.
Want my next Nell Zink fix.
(Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.)
December 26, 2016
I wanted to like this book; the premise is interesting, and the muted, minimal style was executed fairly well - even the present-tense worked, which is typically enough to make me hate a book by the first page. The characters, however, are completely insufferable - not because they're horrible people (although some of them are), but because of how they're written. A lot of my time reading this book was spent wondering if the author's ever spoken to someone under the age of 35, and why she thought she could write this demographic. I'm pretty sure at one point a 23 year-old character unironically asks if e-cigs connect to the internet. One character identified as asexual, but is somehow "converted" after he gives up smoking? Characters toss around buzzwords like "genderqueer" out of context, which mostly just give off the effect that the author's trying too hard to embed the novel in some sort of current millennial zeitgeist she isn't a part of and doesn't understand.
The relationships between characters feel completely inauthentic and arbitrary, part of which is probably due to the muted narrative style, which focuses heavily on dialogue and distanced description, rather than any kind of reflection - which might've worked if the dialogue was written better. Instead, the audience is left wondering why Penny falls in "love" with Rob so quickly, what connection, beyond the purely superficial, she could possibly have developed with these people, why she's even bothering to live with them. Much of the novel felt unfocused, like it couldn't quite figure out what story it was telling, or what connects these sort-of separate stories other than the characters, all of whom are incredibly flat and almost interchangeable. There's also some questionable social views espoused throughout the book - fairly overt transphobia in what calls itself a feminist space, a weird emphasis on specifically heteronormative sex, the whole issue of Rob's asexuality, plenty of fat-shaming - that could be chalked up to purely the perspective of individual characters - there's no rule that says people need to be ethical, responsible, or even likeable - but the distanced narrative style makes it so difficult to get any sense of perspective on these issues, especially since they're rarely challenged. Matt is fairly clearly made out to be abusive and manipulative (making Jazz's relationship with him even more disturbing), but the other characters say and do plenty of questionable things that go completely unchallenged, either by other characters or the novel itself.
Even if all this is done on purpose, if the point is something about how shallow these pseudo-anarchists are, then why bother? Why read a boring book about people you have no investment in doing things you don't care about? All the pseudo-activism and anarchy is also sort of hard to reconcile with Penny's grief over her father's death, which comes back to the book feeling fuzzy and unfocused, like there's almost a connection, there's almost a good story here, the author just couldn't find it. Overall, the book falls somewhere between benignly mediocre and actively terrible.
The relationships between characters feel completely inauthentic and arbitrary, part of which is probably due to the muted narrative style, which focuses heavily on dialogue and distanced description, rather than any kind of reflection - which might've worked if the dialogue was written better. Instead, the audience is left wondering why Penny falls in "love" with Rob so quickly, what connection, beyond the purely superficial, she could possibly have developed with these people, why she's even bothering to live with them. Much of the novel felt unfocused, like it couldn't quite figure out what story it was telling, or what connects these sort-of separate stories other than the characters, all of whom are incredibly flat and almost interchangeable. There's also some questionable social views espoused throughout the book - fairly overt transphobia in what calls itself a feminist space, a weird emphasis on specifically heteronormative sex, the whole issue of Rob's asexuality, plenty of fat-shaming - that could be chalked up to purely the perspective of individual characters - there's no rule that says people need to be ethical, responsible, or even likeable - but the distanced narrative style makes it so difficult to get any sense of perspective on these issues, especially since they're rarely challenged. Matt is fairly clearly made out to be abusive and manipulative (making Jazz's relationship with him even more disturbing), but the other characters say and do plenty of questionable things that go completely unchallenged, either by other characters or the novel itself.
Even if all this is done on purpose, if the point is something about how shallow these pseudo-anarchists are, then why bother? Why read a boring book about people you have no investment in doing things you don't care about? All the pseudo-activism and anarchy is also sort of hard to reconcile with Penny's grief over her father's death, which comes back to the book feeling fuzzy and unfocused, like there's almost a connection, there's almost a good story here, the author just couldn't find it. Overall, the book falls somewhere between benignly mediocre and actively terrible.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2016
3.5 stars - This is the second book that I've read by Nell Zink. I think she is a strong writer, but I was ready to finish this story well before the final pages. The book opens in a garbage dump in Cartagena, Columbia and quickly jumps forward to become an end-of-life hospice story for a short time before becoming something else and then something else again. Unfortunately, I was least interested in the part of the story where the scenario expands to fill the rest of the pages. (It's also a little depressing to read a novel in the alternate reality where Clinton beat Trump. This isn't a central focus of the story, but two comments in the book--written/published before the election--make this clear.)
I will read more by Nell Zink because she is a strong writer. Here are a few places that I flagged as I read the book:
1. Her description of the end of the hospice journey: "A week later, without another peep of complaint, Norm stops dying."
2. "When she comments that the empty brick 'brownstones' could be crack houses, he says they are empty because they were built on fill. Rather than install a drainpipe to carry the stream he buried, the developer 120 years ago dumped it full of dirt and trash. 'The back halves are in ruins,' he explains. 'Every day they slide a little farther down into the creek.'
'They could still be crack houses.'
'I don't know. This is more of a heroin-type neighborhood.'"
3. "A dark wall approaches over the ocean, low and sinister, and eats the bridge. 'Fog,' Rob says knowingly, but there is reverence in his voice.
They return to the minivan exhausted, after a long march through blank, boring whiteness."
4. The two sentence paragraph of page 262 that inserts the TM sign after "like", "friend", and "friends".
I will read more by Nell Zink because she is a strong writer. Here are a few places that I flagged as I read the book:
1. Her description of the end of the hospice journey: "A week later, without another peep of complaint, Norm stops dying."
2. "When she comments that the empty brick 'brownstones' could be crack houses, he says they are empty because they were built on fill. Rather than install a drainpipe to carry the stream he buried, the developer 120 years ago dumped it full of dirt and trash. 'The back halves are in ruins,' he explains. 'Every day they slide a little farther down into the creek.'
'They could still be crack houses.'
'I don't know. This is more of a heroin-type neighborhood.'"
3. "A dark wall approaches over the ocean, low and sinister, and eats the bridge. 'Fog,' Rob says knowingly, but there is reverence in his voice.
They return to the minivan exhausted, after a long march through blank, boring whiteness."
4. The two sentence paragraph of page 262 that inserts the TM sign after "like", "friend", and "friends".
October 25, 2016
When a book opens with mysticism in the jungle, followed by a slow institutionalized death, and then things get weird, well, that gets my attention. I’ve read a lot about Nell Zink, including her correspondence with a certain bestselling literary author, but NICOTINE is the first of her three books I’ve read. Her voice snuck up on me. Funny and often flat, descriptive but deceptive, so that the world she built in my head is real and unreal simultaneously. Her story veers towards satirically easy targets, such as the activist squatters who take up the bulk of the novel, yet is always surprising. I can’t say what the book is about, though I guess if I push myself I could give you a couple themes to play with, because the book feels like a 300-page injection into the vein of these characters lives and that’s a messy mix of everything. To boil it down to a few serviceable topics would be a disservice to its pleasure. Fiction isn’t life, of course, but it can be as unruly and is better for it.
April 28, 2020
Since I am always hungry for fiction about intentional living/anarchist communities, I was expecting to enjoy this book much more than I did. I suppose it was meant to be satire, but to me it felt totally devoid of humor or wittiness. Every single character had atrocious politics and zero capacity for effective communication. Never in my life have I been privy to the bizarre, stilted conversations that made up so much of this novel. The lack of empathy with which these characters were rendered made me wonder if the author actually harbors disdain for leftists. The setting and plot setup were intriguing, but that's about it.
November 22, 2016
I truly have nothing good to say about this book. I picked it up for a book club read, otherwise I would have put the book away. Nicotine was a house of squatters and Penny was sent by her family to rid the house of them, but became friends with them instead. The book is full of activism and disjointed speech as far as I'm concerned and was a waste of money.
November 7, 2016
I would have given this five stars if the ending hadn't been so abrupt. As someone who's been steeped
In the far left this election cycle, this rang so funny and true. She manages to be both respectful and make fun of activism/anarchists in today's world.
In the far left this election cycle, this rang so funny and true. She manages to be both respectful and make fun of activism/anarchists in today's world.
December 14, 2016
Ugh, I tried to like this book. I tried to drag it out. I just couldn't keep forcing myself to suffer page after page. Some people might like this book. It just wasn't something that kept my interest at all.
October 10, 2016
Quit reading, too chopped up nonsensical out there story lines. Couldn't get into it.
December 25, 2018
Haus von Rauch
Etwas seltsam sind die Verhältnisse in der Familie Baker. Doch Auskunft darüber geben kann der alte Norman Baker am Ende seines Lebens nicht mehr. Seine 23jährige Tochter Penny, die nach der Ausbildung noch keine Arbeitsstelle hat, pflegt ihn an seinem Sterbebett. Der Tot des alten Mannes hat allerdings zur Folge, dass Penny ihr Apartment verliert, das ihr Vater gemietet hatte. Nun ist sie nicht nur arbeitslos und auch obdachlos. Eher durch Zufall erfährt sie, dass sich das Elternhaus von Norman Baker noch im Besitz der Familie befindet. Dieses ist jedoch von einer Kommune besetzt und heißt jetzt Nikotin.
Ein uriges Haus, das von den Besetzern einigermaßen instand gesetzt wurde. Durch diese Instandbesetzung und die Benennung des Mottos (Schutz der letzten noch verbliebenen Raucher), haben die Besetzer ein Aufenthaltsrecht erlangt. Eigentlich soll Penny im Auftrag der Familie für die Räumung des Hauses sorgen. Sie ist aber von der Idee und einem der Bewohner so begeistert, dass sie lieber in der Kommune mitmischen möchte. Im Haus Nikotin ist im Moment kein Zimmer frei, doch es gibt Auswahl genug an Kommunen in der Umgebung. Ihrer Familie wird Penny schon eine Geschichte auftischen, weshalb es mit der Räumung nicht vorangeht.
Mit Penny, deren Mutter aus den Slums von Cartagena stammt, und Rob, der sich als asexuell bezeichnet, hat die Autorin ein interessantes Paar geschaffen. Ein Paar allerdings, dem man sich nicht so leicht nahe fühlt. Vielleicht ist die Fülle dieses Romans zu groß. Liebesgeschichte, Familiengeschichte, Gesellschaftssatire. Pennys familiären Verhältnisse sind doch sehr eigenartig. Und um die Belange, die sich auf die Hausbesetzerszene, den Schamanismus und Normans Lebensgeschichte beziehen, sind möglicherweise für die Leser nicht so gut nachvollziehbar, die sich mit den Verhältnissen in Amerika nicht so gut auskennen. Der Roman ist damit zwar etwas schwergängig, aber durchaus humorvoll, bissig und ironisch.
Etwas seltsam sind die Verhältnisse in der Familie Baker. Doch Auskunft darüber geben kann der alte Norman Baker am Ende seines Lebens nicht mehr. Seine 23jährige Tochter Penny, die nach der Ausbildung noch keine Arbeitsstelle hat, pflegt ihn an seinem Sterbebett. Der Tot des alten Mannes hat allerdings zur Folge, dass Penny ihr Apartment verliert, das ihr Vater gemietet hatte. Nun ist sie nicht nur arbeitslos und auch obdachlos. Eher durch Zufall erfährt sie, dass sich das Elternhaus von Norman Baker noch im Besitz der Familie befindet. Dieses ist jedoch von einer Kommune besetzt und heißt jetzt Nikotin.
Ein uriges Haus, das von den Besetzern einigermaßen instand gesetzt wurde. Durch diese Instandbesetzung und die Benennung des Mottos (Schutz der letzten noch verbliebenen Raucher), haben die Besetzer ein Aufenthaltsrecht erlangt. Eigentlich soll Penny im Auftrag der Familie für die Räumung des Hauses sorgen. Sie ist aber von der Idee und einem der Bewohner so begeistert, dass sie lieber in der Kommune mitmischen möchte. Im Haus Nikotin ist im Moment kein Zimmer frei, doch es gibt Auswahl genug an Kommunen in der Umgebung. Ihrer Familie wird Penny schon eine Geschichte auftischen, weshalb es mit der Räumung nicht vorangeht.
Mit Penny, deren Mutter aus den Slums von Cartagena stammt, und Rob, der sich als asexuell bezeichnet, hat die Autorin ein interessantes Paar geschaffen. Ein Paar allerdings, dem man sich nicht so leicht nahe fühlt. Vielleicht ist die Fülle dieses Romans zu groß. Liebesgeschichte, Familiengeschichte, Gesellschaftssatire. Pennys familiären Verhältnisse sind doch sehr eigenartig. Und um die Belange, die sich auf die Hausbesetzerszene, den Schamanismus und Normans Lebensgeschichte beziehen, sind möglicherweise für die Leser nicht so gut nachvollziehbar, die sich mit den Verhältnissen in Amerika nicht so gut auskennen. Der Roman ist damit zwar etwas schwergängig, aber durchaus humorvoll, bissig und ironisch.
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