The Nix

The instant New York Times No. 5 bestseller. A gloriously ambitious, witty and deeply touching debut novel of fifty years of America and of American radical protest. The story of a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own.

'The best new writer of fiction in America. The best.' - John Irving/b> Nathan Hill's brilliant debut takes the reader from the rural Midwest of the 1960s, to New York City during Occupy Wall Street; from Chicago in 1968, to wartime Norway: home of the mysterious Nix. Meet Samuel: stalled writer, bored teacher at a local college, obsessive player of online video games. He hasn't seen his mother, Faye, in decades, not since she abandoned her family when he was a boy. Now she has suddenly reappeared, having committed an absurd politically motivated crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the Internet, and inflames a divided America. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she's facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel's help. As Samuel begins to excavate his mother's, and his country's, history, he will unexpectedly find that he has to rethink everything he ever knew about her - a woman with an epic story of her own, a story she has kept hidden from the world.

To make sense of what is going on Portland, USA today, refer back to Nathan Hill's The Nix - published four years ago. Hill captures the soul of the US through a handful of characters. He unlocks the code to the current state of the country - the hubris of polarisation; a way of life played as a zero-sum game . . .The Great American Novel is a myth, much like the baseball World Series, and is the myth that undermines the nation. There can, of course, be a North American great novel. The Nix certainly is that, and even better: it is a great novel.

Préface
The instant New York Times No. 5 bestseller, a gloriously ambitious, witty and deeply touching debut novel of fifty years of America and of American radical protest, the story of a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own.

Auteur

Nathan Hill's short stories have appeared in many literary journals, including The Iowa Review, AGNI, The Gettysburg Review, and Fiction, where he was awarded the annual Fiction Prize. A native Iowan, he now lives with his wife in Naples, Florida. He is the author of The Nix and Wellness.

Texte du rabat

'The best thing a reviewer can do when faced with a novel of this calibre and breadth is to urge you to read it for yourselves . . . Hill's talents as a writer are so abundant . . . The Nix is ra novel about growing up . . . about the two childhoods of mother and son, about coming of age, awkward friendships and first loves, about the loneliness of intelligence, about loss and mishandled relationships' Guardian

'This superb debut novel could well be the most ambitious novel of the year . . . [The Nix] touches on the 2008 financial crash, the Occupy protests, the 1968 Chicago riots, academic life, small-town life, fad diets, pointless apps - and much else [in] an original, funny and affecting story . . . [It] seems like Hill is a writer who can do pretty much what he wants' Daily Telegraph

'Reading The Nix - all 620 pages of it - is an experience of complete unadulterated pleasure . . . An admirably accomplished novel' Independent

Résumé
The instant New York Times No. 5 bestseller. A gloriously ambitious, witty and deeply touching debut novel of fifty years of America and of American radical protest. The story of a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own.