Courtesy of Square Books
The New York Times has called Nathan Hill’s debut novel “The Nix” the love child of David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon.
Hill has been compared to John Irving, who in turn has compared him to Charles Dickens. That’s quite a lot of praise, and still the acclaim pours in for Hill, whose next stop at Square Books will bring him to the town of Barry Hannah, one of his many inspirations.
“I have not been to Oxford yet, but I can’t wait,” Hill said. “Square Books is legendary. Oxford is Faulkner’s town. I knew Barry Hannah from my MFA program and he was a big inspiration.”
“The Nix” incorporates many autobiographical details inspired from Hill’s own life and experience. The main character is an English professor, much like Hill and has a love interest who is a classical musician, just like Hill’s wife. And as for the details embedded more in myth than reality, “the nix” itself is inspired by Hill’s Scandinavian ancestry.
“The nix is a creature from Scandinavian folklore,” Hill said. “Every country has a different version. It’s a troll creature that appears as a beautiful white horse in order to tempt kids onto its back. Once there, it carries them into the water and drowns them. That idea seemed really resonant for me. For these kids, having this beautiful horse approach them would be such a grand highlight of their lives, until it turns around and kills them. It’s that idea of what you love or depend upon coming back to bite you that threads through this book.”
Hill’s editor, Tim O’Connell, explained his first reaction upon seeing Hill’s manuscript, the story that would eventually become “The Nix.”
“’Wow, this voice is amazing’ would be my first thought, and I had this thought almost immediately,” O’Connell said. “Then I began laughing a lot and I quickly understood that I was in the presence of a writer with great range. My final thought was that I would be doing nothing else until I finish this manuscript.”
“The Nix” relies on humor and satire as well as life-changing revelations to move the story along. Infamously, Hill inserted a 10-page sentence within one chapter, where a man addicted to his MMORPGs tries to make up his mind about quitting them.
“The chapter is two sentences long,” Hill said, laughing. “The first sentence is short and the second sentence is 10 pages long. This guy thinks that he should quit gaming and promptly spends the entire chapter thinking about why he can’t possibly quit.”
Along with the insular world of gaming and mythology, “The Nix” focuses on issues of abandonment and politics. The main character, Samuel Andresen-Anderson, has long been estranged with his mother, Faye, who abandoned him and his family. Faye resurfaces years later embroiled in scandal and politics, to Samuel’s consternation.
“The snap judgment is that she’s evil,” Hill said. “But that snap judgment is unfair to the depth of human experience. After she’s done this terrible thing, Faye wants to feel like the good guy in her own story. People are judged for split-second decisions and I wanted the book to resist that.”
The humanity of Hill’s novel is grounded in humor and revelation. The story and author both have been heralded as genius. O’Connell can speak for this better than anyone.
“I had other early readers of the manuscript when I first got it in and each and every one of their reactions was over-the-top joy and praise. I knew that if we could get people reading in the world the reaction would be the same. It is an infectious book. Thus, while one never can say ‘I knew it’ or truly predict the gauntlet to success, I just had a feeling that this book would find its way, and I am so happy it did,” O’Connell said.
Don’t miss Nathan Hill’s “The Nix” at 6 p.m. Thursday at Square Books.
