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The Nix A novel Nathan Hill 9781101946619 Books

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The Nix A novel Nathan Hill 9781101946619 Books

I read a couple novels recently that used different techniques that I typically do not like. Surprisingly, in both cases, the authors were able to overcome my tentative displeasure and produce stories that I enjoyed immensely. This novel, The Nix by Nathan Hill, was the first of them. (10:04 by Ben Lerner was the other.)

In The Nix Mr. Hill tells the story of a family. The focus of the story is Samuel Andresen-Anderson, a writer wannabe who gained a university position on the basis of a single story and has never produced anything else. He is haunted by the fact that his mother, Faye, abandoned him when he was a boy. In a spontaneous public act, Faye “attacks” a politician and mother and son are forced back together, where Sam learns that Faye is hiding from her own ghosts, including that of her immigrant father, Fridtjof, who is chased by ghosts of his own.

It is through his reencounter with his mother that this long series of hauntings begins to unravel. Sam has flashbacks to his youth and, in the present day, researches his mother’s history, which leads us back to her story and, ultimately, her father’s. The story is intricate and well-plotted. Mr. Hill has created a book of length and depth, which gradually reveals its surprises and comes to a generally satisfying conclusion.

My concerns with this novel came with the constantly varying points-of-view. It’s not that this needs be a particular problem, but I generally don’t like it when so many comparatively minor characters come to the fore. In particular, we end up on a few occasions in the minds of Laura, a college student, and Pwnage, an obsessive gamer who, while nominally connected to Sam, are basically independent actors. Normally, I find these digressions irritating, taking away from the main thrust of the novel. In the end, however, my mind kept coming back to these digressions as much as to the main thrust of the story in ways that I appreciated.

Laura, especially, is entirely memorable as an entitled young woman who has always succeeded through cheating. Now, as a college student, she has been caught but, instead of trying to reform, she blames Sam (her professor), the school, and the world for her “need” to cheat and lashes out. As a parent and a teacher, the section of the novel where we get a look into her mind, seeing her doubts, her rationalizations, her manipulations of others, her dependence on social media to regulate her emotions, is one of the scariest passages I’ve read in a novel in a long time. It may not add anything to the development of the main points of the plot, but it is unforgettable.

In the end, this novel is populated with a menagerie of characters (only some of whom have I mentioned here) suffering because of the demons that follow them. What these demons mean and how the characters succeed or fail in managing them make this an entirely absorbing novel. It is also free from many of the weakness I find from first time novelists. This is a book well worth reading.


Tags : The Nix: A novel [Nathan Hill] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>Winner of the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction A New York Times </i></i>2016 Notable Book Entertainment Weekly's </i>#1 Book of the Year A Washington Post </i>2016 Notable Book A Slate </i>Top Ten Book NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER “The Nix </i>is a mother-son psychodrama with ghosts and politics,Nathan Hill,The Nix: A novel,Knopf,110194661X,Historical,Humorous - General,Literary,Domestic fiction,FICTION Family Life,FICTION Humorous,Family secrets,Family secrets;Fiction.,Mothers and sons,Mothers and sons;Fiction.,Self-realization,Self-realization;Fiction.,AMERICAN FIRST NOVELISTS,AMERICAN HISTORICAL FICTION,FICTION Family Life General,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Humorous General,FICTION Literary,Family Life,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Literary,FictionFamily Life - General,FictionHumorous - General,GENERAL,General Adult,Literature; Literary fiction; Political fiction; politics; fiction; literary; novel; satire; culture; pop culture; dark comedy; tragicomedy; family; abandonment; Norwegian folklore; Family story; mother-son; Love; education; abuse; Video gaming; Video games; Internet gaming; Chicago; New York City; suburban Midwest; 1968 riots; 1968 convention; Democratic Convention of 1968; Republican Convention; Democratic Convention; 21st-century elections; Hubert Humphrey; Allen Ginsberg; Walter Cronkite; funny books,Literature;Literary fiction;Political fiction;politics;fiction;literary;novel;satire;culture;pop culture;dark comedy;family;abandonment;Love;education;abuse;Video gaming;Video games;Chicago;New York City;Hubert Humphrey;Allen Ginsberg;Walter Cronkite;literary fiction;funny books;comedy;humorous books;funny gifts;novels;humor;fiction books;humor books;literature;books fiction;satire fiction;realistic fiction books;coming of age;american literature;friendship;relationships;identity;marriage,Mothers and sons,Mothers and sons;Fiction.,Self-realization,Self-realization;Fiction.,United States,FICTION Family Life General,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Humorous General,FICTION Literary,Family Life,FictionFamily Life - General,FictionHumorous - General,Fiction - General,American First Novelists,American Historical Fiction,Fiction

The Nix A novel Nathan Hill 9781101946619 Books Reviews

Samuel is an underachieving assistant professor of literature at a nothing college outside Chicago who dislikes his students, spends way too much time playing an online fantasy game, got a huge advance for a novel he never wrote, and is pining for the girl he loved when he was eleven. His life is stalled out big time, but he is dragged out of stasis when his estranged mother, who abandoned him when he was eleven and has never been heard from since, makes national headlines for throwing rocks at a Presidential candidate - she is the Packer Attacker! Through a ridiculous series of events, Samuel is tasked with writing his mother's life story, and is forced to investigate her life since leaving him. The Nix is the story of how mother and son came to where they are -- and where they might go from here.

But really, this basic plot description does not begin to do this book justice. Nathan Hill has a dazzling imagination, and the feats of writing that he performs are an absolute joy to experience. He writes one chapter from the POV of a gaming addict, an internal stream of consciousness in which the character makes elaborate plans to quit gaming, but talks himself out of it. This is ten pages, one paragraph, and it is absolutely mesmerizing -- funny and insightful and sad, about the stories we tell ourselves. Another chapter is just a conversation between Samuel and the lawyer who is representing his mother, nothing but dialogue, and it is hysterical. Another chapter is a Choose Your Own Adventure mini-bookl explaining how Samuel's relationship with a violin prodigy came unraveled, because Samuel does not choose wisely. Another chapter is...you get the picture.

The story of Samuel and his mother is a jumping-off point for Mr. Hill to write about a huge range of things let's see, he covers second-rate higher education, gaming addicts, the ravenous news media, music prodigies, child abuse, child abandonment, thwarted love, the 1960s counter-cultural revolution, Allan Ginsberg, Walter Cronkite -- at one point, no joke, there is a sequence inside the head of Walter Cronkite where he imagines himself as a bird flying above the Chicago riots... and I still haven't skimmed the surface of all the things this book is really about.

And if I have a criticism, that's what it is. This book is about so many things, it is so wildly ambitious and imagined, that at times it seems to get a bit out of control. Around the time Walter Cronkite was imagining himself as a bird, I was thinking, hmm, a little editing might have helped some. Reading The Nix feels a bit like watching a wildly talented thoroughbred run -- and win -- its first race. You see the immense beauty of the animal, the strength, the speed, it easily outpaces the rest of the field, you know you're at the beginning of something special. Yes, the horse is a little wild, a little undisciplined, maybe veers around the track a bit, maybe tires at the end, but my gosh. You want to turn to everyone around you and say "Did you SEE that?"

And one last thing. So many books these days are being written with a lot of technique, but they're lacking in heart. What makes this book special, to me, is that Mr. Hill's heart is as generous as his talent. He writes fantastic sentences, he has astonishing craft, but beyond that, he has true empathy, compassion and hope, He sees the insanity of the world, but he also has hope for our future. And I have tremendous hope for his.
I read a couple novels recently that used different techniques that I typically do not like. Surprisingly, in both cases, the authors were able to overcome my tentative displeasure and produce stories that I enjoyed immensely. This novel, The Nix by Nathan Hill, was the first of them. (1004 by Ben Lerner was the other.)

In The Nix Mr. Hill tells the story of a family. The focus of the story is Samuel Andresen-Anderson, a writer wannabe who gained a university position on the basis of a single story and has never produced anything else. He is haunted by the fact that his mother, Faye, abandoned him when he was a boy. In a spontaneous public act, Faye “attacks” a politician and mother and son are forced back together, where Sam learns that Faye is hiding from her own ghosts, including that of her immigrant father, Fridtjof, who is chased by ghosts of his own.

It is through his reencounter with his mother that this long series of hauntings begins to unravel. Sam has flashbacks to his youth and, in the present day, researches his mother’s history, which leads us back to her story and, ultimately, her father’s. The story is intricate and well-plotted. Mr. Hill has created a book of length and depth, which gradually reveals its surprises and comes to a generally satisfying conclusion.

My concerns with this novel came with the constantly varying points-of-view. It’s not that this needs be a particular problem, but I generally don’t like it when so many comparatively minor characters come to the fore. In particular, we end up on a few occasions in the minds of Laura, a college student, and Pwnage, an obsessive gamer who, while nominally connected to Sam, are basically independent actors. Normally, I find these digressions irritating, taking away from the main thrust of the novel. In the end, however, my mind kept coming back to these digressions as much as to the main thrust of the story in ways that I appreciated.

Laura, especially, is entirely memorable as an entitled young woman who has always succeeded through cheating. Now, as a college student, she has been caught but, instead of trying to reform, she blames Sam (her professor), the school, and the world for her “need” to cheat and lashes out. As a parent and a teacher, the section of the novel where we get a look into her mind, seeing her doubts, her rationalizations, her manipulations of others, her dependence on social media to regulate her emotions, is one of the scariest passages I’ve read in a novel in a long time. It may not add anything to the development of the main points of the plot, but it is unforgettable.

In the end, this novel is populated with a menagerie of characters (only some of whom have I mentioned here) suffering because of the demons that follow them. What these demons mean and how the characters succeed or fail in managing them make this an entirely absorbing novel. It is also free from many of the weakness I find from first time novelists. This is a book well worth reading.