Nix and NP really

[Mark Kohut]

How about that Mason & Dixon, eh? All revved up?. This essay I read into
during the
'rev your engines' time---and, I challenge obnoxiously, I read M & D *again,
*didju? (But if you didn't, questions can be great conversation starters
online)--
pointed out how much movement there was in all kinds of expressed ways
in the book. M & D themselves, the Vroom girls, the very metaphors. Just a
pump prime.



But may I also recommend a recent novel that many of you--and if you're not
young and have
offspring a couple decades younger--might really enjoy.

It is called The Nix by Nathan Hill, a recent paperback widely praised--I
saw him speak at the DC
Book Fair in September, a handsome witty engaging presenter full of some
good stories about himself,
the writing of the book and the book. Here is a probably not exact poll
fact he pointed out--in the division
in the nation that was the sixties, there was a poll that asked parents if
they would be upset if their child
married a spouse from the other political Party. I believe 50% said No. In
the very recent past the poll was
taken again. I believe only 4% said No now. Talk about that polarization,
eh? Like polarized sunglasses.

I will oversimplyfyingly say, Dickensian (or to me a lot like Robertson
Davies, whom I have read more than Dickens,
I know, I know or early John Irving--who blurbs it). That is,  the sweep of
old-fashioned plot and story, chapters
setting up dramatic events with surprising happenings as multiple plot
lines are all open and keep us expecting.

A novel that stretches from the sixties and some hidden 'hippie',
counter-culture values playing out over our
protagonist's life thru school in the eighties and bullying and first love
to the present and our protagonist now a teacher and a typical
slacker student and the non-sequitor rationalizations for
plaigerism--really a wonderful scene that would make a terrif short
monologue
for acting...

and that teacher hooked on video games in a stressful life.

See you on the 21st.
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