Nicotine - Softcover

Zink, Nell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006244171X ISBN 13: 9780062441713

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2017

Synopsis

The "wonderfully talented" (Dwight Garner, New York Times) author of Mislaid returns with a "heady, witty" (Booklist) novel of obsession, idealism, and ownership, centered around a young woman who inherits her bohemian 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 an Amazonian tribe called the Kogi; her much older father, Norm, long ago attained cult-like deity status among a certain group of aging hippies while operating a 'healing center' in New Jersey. 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 occupied by a group of friendly and charming anarchist squatters who have renamed the property Nicotine House. The residents of Nicotine House (defenders 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's never felt before. Penny 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 Nicotine House, 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.

About this title

Review

"Extraordinary... Get the book for its crackling prose and razor-sharp wit, but ready yourself for its blitzkrieg of startling imagery."--Village Voice

"Undeniably excellent... Propulsive... This is Zink at her most heartfelt... Zink is an architect. She builds worlds that look a little like ours, but are wrong enough to make one think--really think, not just feel. "--New Republic

"Intellectually restless, uniquely funny...Propulsive, wonderfully stuffed with irreverent and absorbing banter...What's most bootylicious in this novel is Zink's warmhearted embrace of her subjects...One enjoys every minute with these obliging kooks....There may be some readers who want to make out with this book."--New York Times Book Review

"Smart and often very funny... Even while Zink skewers bohemian stereotypes -- the affluent squatter, the chain-smoking environmentalist -- she cares for her characters, imbuing them with complicated personalities, causes and sexual proclivities. Rich sensory detail, earnest dialogue and raw emotion...Absorbing, original... Belongs on your fall list."--Chicago Tribune

"She's a deadpan comedian, her sentences funny yet plump with existential dread...You're never tempted to put Ms. Zink's novels aside. They contain so much backspin and topspin that you're kept alert by the leaping motion... Her books are sexy... I could listen to Ms. Zink's dialogue all day."--Dwight Garner, New York Times

"Even when Zink is being conventional, she's exemplary. What makes her satire so exciting and so novel is the empathy of her writing... Exciting and provocative... She's a singular figure in the literary landscape, and Nicotine is a perfect introduction to her brilliant, off-kilter world."--Vox

"The author's best work... Zink is a wordsmith's wordsmith. She's sharp, wry, and might be a genius."--The Millions

"A hilarious perversion of the rom-com...Ms. Zink's 2015 novel Mislaid delightfully sent up racial and gender mores, and here again she has affectionate fun tweaking the pieties of her cast of businessmen, cultists and activists. ...Nicotine is light reading in the best sense. Think Wodehouse for millennials."--Wall Street Journal

"[A] wild and nervy novel. Zink is a master of rapid character development, shifting perspectives, sex scenes and plot twists. ... "Nicotine" was so addictive it made me want to reach for a cigarette when I was done."--Los Angeles Times

"Zink writes some of the most comical lust between "love weasels" in contemporary fiction...[She] excels at scathing set pieces that caustically sum up places and local cultures...She gets her characters in motion, like mismatched roommates in a ramshackle house, and lets us enjoy watching them pinball around."--Washington Post

From the Back Cover

Named a Best Book of 2016 by Slate and the Dallas Morning News

Unemployed--and unmoored by her father's death--recent college graduate Penny Baker decides to fix up her dad's childhood home in New Jersey. Instead, she finds it occupied by a group of friendly anarchist squatters who have renamed the property "Nicotine." The residents (united in defense of smokers' rights) and the other squatters in the neighborhood provide a sense of community and purpose that Penny feels she's desperately lacking. She soon moves into a nearby residence, becoming enmeshed in their political fervor, and falling irredeemably in love with an asexual resident by the name of Rob. But the rest of Penny's family has other plans--her mother and older half-brother would prefer to evict the squatters and gentrify the neighborhood. As the Baker family's lives begin to converge around Nicotine, Penny grows ever bolder and more determined to protect it.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 006244171X
• ISBN 13: 9780062441713
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304