Author(s): Nell Zink

Novel | Read our reviews! | Humour & Satire | USA

From the much acclaimed author of MISLAID and THE WALLCREEPER, 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.

"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."

Unemployed business major, Penny, has rebelled against her family her whole life - by being the conventional one. Her mother was a member of a South American tribe; her father was a Jewish Shamanist with a psychedelic 'healing centre'. But everything changes when her father dies and Penny inherits his childhood home. Left weightless and unmoored after being the only member of her family with time for her dying father, Penny then finds his property occupied by a group of squatters, united in defence of smokers' rights - and herself unexpectedly besotted with them, particularly Rob, the hot bicycle-and-tobacco activist.

Totally addictive and dangerously good, 'Nicotine' is a fiercely funny novel in which passion is politics and nonviolence is the opposite of surrender.

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STELLA'S REVIEW:
Last year I read Mislaid by Nell Zink, the story of Peggy who assumes a new identity for herself and her daughter after her very unsuitable marriage breaks apart. Moving to an abandoned hut on the fringe of a small community Peggy, now Meg, plays out her new role in life without a misfire until it all implodes. Mislaid explored what makes a family, what constitutes a relationship and what is real and what is pretentious. Zink’s writing, with its overtones and undertones (plenty of sly digs at cultural norms and hilarious metaphors about relationships), was appealing, fresh and surprising. I’ve just read her latest novel, Nicotine. Again, here, she explores family and relationships in her own surprising way putting her characters through the paces, not letting up on them and playing with society’s concepts of capitalism, pragmatism and ‘spirituality’. Enter Penny, the unemployed business school graduate, daughter of Norm, the Jewish shaman who is famous for his healing clinics and extreme spiritualism, and Amalia, a Kogi, the young second wife rescued from the poverty of South America, who has become a very successful corporate banker. With parents like this, you know from the beginning that Penny carries some baggage. When her aged father dies, Penny is distraught and is left with more questions than answers about her family. Needing distraction, her family decide that she needs something to do and send her to rescue her grandparents’ long-abandoned home in a dodgy suburb of New Jersey. So, we enter Nicotine, the home of squatter activists whose common cause is the right to smoke. Penny is intrigued by the squatters and attracted to Rob, the very good-looking bicycle mechanic. Rather than throw them out of the house, she finds herself part of their group, developing relationships with all the home dwellers that will change not only her life, but theirs too. Penny, despite her seeming uselessness, becomes the catalyst for change for all, with many hilarious machinations and sly digs at social conformity on all sides along the way. Zink is a ‘naughty’ writer – toying with her reader and her characters, constantly making fun of both in a very appealing and clever way. If you like to look at life a bit sideways then you’ll enjoy her style, playfulness and reflections on people – their gullibility, as well as their backbone.

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Reviews:

'Hard as nails and soft as tears, this is Zink's best yet' Monocle

'There's a liveliness in Zink's prose, an exuberance that carries the reader... Zink writes with a joyful recklessness - the sense that maybe she did write this novel in three weeks - that makes her one of the freshest talents around.' Joe Dunthorne, The Guardian

'Nicotine is another hilarious and generally blurb-defying display of off-the-wall firepower. Zink has enormous fun with her cast of clueless, horny, hippy activists, but she's the real anarchic spirit. It's weirdly affecting, totally addictive and exhilaratingly unlike anything else you'll read' Daily Mail

'Nicotine is a fitting title. Her sentences are like cigarettes: the first few are dizzying and not always pleasant, but before you know it, you're hooked. Nicotine is a very funny book that has very serious things to say about the hypocrisies of millennial attitudes to love and power and desire.' The Daily Telegraph*****

'Nicotine is addictive ... she combines the fiercely funny with whipsmart originality to dizzying effect' Stylist

'Nicotine proves Zink's distinctive verve as mesmerising as ever' Independent

'Zink's prose is an always fascinating instrument, one as flitting and amorphous as the attention span of her characters ... Her sentences can stun, perfectly nailing a situation or emotion' The Spectator

'The extended description of Norm's death is full of persuasive, unflinching detail; Zink takes time and care, to powerful effect' Sunday Times

'Deadly dry comedy. Zink's unconventionality is refreshing' The Times, Books of the Year

'She's a startlingly original voice, playfully wise, sometimes disturbing' Big Issue North

'Zink is an audacious writer ... she always creates vibrant, off-kilter worlds for her characters to inhabit' The Times

'Nicotine is a whirlwind of a book ...Zink has a great gift for ventriloquism. Her work brims with funny dialogue ... rollicking fun for the 300 or so pages that it lasts' TLS

Author Biography: Nell Zink was born in 1964 in southern California and grew up in rural Virginia. She attended Stuart Hall School and the College of William and Mary, where she majored in philosophy. Rather late in life she got a doctorate in Media Studies from the University of Tubingen, Germany. She works as a translator for Zeitenspiegel Reportagen and lives in Bad Belzig, south of Berlin.