Nick

Category: Book
By (author): Smith, Michael Farris
Subject:  FICTION / Classics
  FICTION / General
  FICTION / Literary
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: January 2022
Format: Book-paperback
Pages: 304
Size: 8.15in x 5.45in x 1.15in
Our Price:
$ 22.99
Availability:
In stock

Additional Notes

From The Publisher*

A critically acclaimed novelist pulls Nick Carraway out of the shadows and into the spotlight in this "masterful" look into his life before Gatsby (Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls and Chances Are).

Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was at the center of a very different story-one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I.

Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance-doomed from the very beginning-to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.

An epic portrait of a truly singular era and a sweeping, romantic story of self-discovery, this rich and imaginative novel breathes new life into a character that many know but few have pondered deeply. Charged with enough alcohol, heartbreak, and profound yearning to paralyze even the heartiest of golden age scribes, Nick reveals the man behind the narrator who has captivated readers for decades. 

Review Quote*Praise for Nick

Entertainment Weekly's Top Reads to Start 2021
Barnes & Noble Bookseller Favorites
O Magazine's Best Books of the New Year
Town & Country 27 Books to Sink Your Teeth Into
Garden & Gun Top-of-2021 Reading List for Southerners
Review Quote*Nick is an exemplary novel. Smith delivers a moving, full-bodied depiction of a man who has been knocked loose from his moorings and is trying to claw back into his own life. -Ben Fountain, New York Times
Review Quote*"Smith, the author of several Southern Gothic novels, is a talented writer who approaches Fitzgerald's work with reverence and close attention to detail. Anyone who knows The Great Gatsby will hear echoes of that book's luxurious melancholy… in [its] style that gracefully reflects the rhythms of Fitzgerald's prose."-Ron Charles, Washington Post
Review Quote*"A haunting read that will linger long after the last page is read."-Kate Whitman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Review Quote*"An evocative glimpse into life amidst World War I...with scenes on wartime battlefields and in New Orleans speakeasies creating more captivating backdrops throughout."-Perri Ormont Blumberg, Southern Living
Review Quote*"Michael Farris Smith paints a smart, vivid picture of a shady, messy world that birthed one of literature's best known characters and has written a must-read for Gatsby fans and newcomers alike."-Town & Country
Review Quote*"Its impact is profound, its resonance subterranean…Once you dive into NICK, you'll be held captive. Once you attune yourself to the rhythm of Farris Smith's voice, you'll follow him anywhere.")-Claire Fullerton, NY Journal of Books
Review Quote*"A dark and often gripping story that imagines the narrator of The Great Gatsby in the years before that book began…Smith is a talented writer known mainly for his gritty evocations of violence, struggle, and loss…The new Nick is a man fully realized, with a mind tormented by the war and by a first love that waned too fast to a fingernail moon of bitter memory…A compelling character study and a thoroughly unconventional prequel."-Kirkus
Review Quote*"Noir is as adaptable as a writer dares to make it, which Smith shows in this compelling prequel to The Great Gatsby."-Bill Ott, Booklist