The Nix

26 hrs. 50 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Nathan Hill

Narrator Grigory Perel

Description

August 2011. Samuel Anderson—an instructor and, for many years now, a “promising writer” who still can’t manage to turn promises into reality—accidentally sees a familiar face on the news. It’s his mother, who disappeared more than twenty years ago: she left the family without explanation, abandoning her husband and young son. Now she’s on everyone’s lips across the country—after she threw a handful of gravel at a conservative governor right in the middle of Chicago. The gesture is ridiculous, provocative, almost theatrical—and for it she faces prison. And a cynical publisher immediately offers Samuel money for a sensational book about the “scandalous mother.” But who was she, and who is she really? The radical hippie the newspapers portray? A quiet woman with a turbulent life story, whose image somehow lingers vaguely in a child’s memory? Or the most ordinary housewife whom he once knew? Any new detail from the past doesn’t bring clarity—it brings new riddles. And gradually Samuel realizes that he will have to do more than uncover the truth about his mother; for the first time, he must also look honestly at himself—at the fears, resentments, and hopes he has been hiding for years.

“Nyekk” is a sweeping, resounding, yet surprisingly tender novel about family and betrayal—about how the past catches up with us at the most inopportune moment. This is a story of growing up through the pain of being left behind, finding one’s roots, and how legends—whether Norwegian folklore or family myths—shape us more strongly than we’re used to thinking.

Listen to Nathan Hill’s vibrant debut—a book in which the scope of a “great American novel” is combined with the intimacy of a family chronicle, in the sensitive performance by Grigory Peryel.

A film adaptation is in preparation: a TV series is set to be released in which Meryl Streep will play the lead role and serve as a producer on the project alongside director J. J. Abrams.

Press on the book:
“[T]he book’s text is delightful; Hill is a meticulous craftsman of word selection, whose artistic focus rarely falters,” — The Guardian
“America’s best new novelist. Best,” — John Irving
“Extremely compelling and consistently sharp… [It is] a large-scale and audacious novel about American misadventures,” — The New York Times Book Review
“Once Jonathan Franzen and Jonathan Safran Foer decided to write a novel by John Irving, with each of them privately thinking: ‘I’m Donna Tartt.’ That’s exactly what Nathan Hill’s ‘Nyekk’ initially looks like—and yet it’s a book you want to sink into,” — Sergey Kumыш