By Katie Magee
Back in October, Nell Zink came to the store to sign and read from her new novel, Nicotine. If you know me, even though I’m eighteen, you know that I look like I am stuck inside the body of a twelve-year-old. So, Nell was about to read an tense, explicit scene from the beginning of Nicotine (which includes an “almost” rape scene) when she hesitated because “some people around look[ed] pretty young.” Knowing that she was obviously referring to me, I said, “I’ve already read it.” Kelly, one of the managers here at Lemuria, assured her that I am older than I look. Let’s just say my face got pretty red, I began to sweat a little, and I thought about that moment for the next week… or maybe two.
A lot like the main character in Nicotine, Penny, I felt a bit alienated. Penny has a hippie father, Norm, who has a cult-like following and a mother, Amalia, who was born into an Amazonian tribe. Penny recently graduated from business school and cannot help but feel like an outsider in her own far-out family. When Norm dies, Penny inherits his childhood home. Upon visiting the house, which has now been christened “Nicotine,” Penny discovers it has been taken over by a group of anarchist squatters who advocate for smokers’ rights.
The members of Nicotine welcome Penny as one of their own and she has absolutely no problem letting them remain in the house that is now technically hers. Feeling a bit like her spontaneous father, Penny decides to try out the lifestyle her father lived and loved for so long. Fulfilling her need to belong, Penny finds a community among the residents of Nicotine and other squatter-occupied houses in the neighborhood. Everything goes pretty well until the day Penny’s money-hungry brother, Matt, decides to try and seize the house for himself.
This house brings Penny’s family together, but also threatens to tear them apart. Penny gets stuck in between her old family and her new one, wanting to defend the residents of Nicotine as well as try to please the people who loved and supported her father for so long.
Nell has a beautiful way of throwing contrasting elements and feelings into a book and having them work out perfectly. Nicotine is a story about self-acceptance and materialism, about love and hate, about heartbreak and happiness. Nicotine is packed with family drama and surprising romantic relationships. It is a book full of lost souls trying to find their way in the world they live in.
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