A fierce and audaciously funny new novel from the author of Mislaid and The Wallcreeper.Unemployedand unmoored by her fathers deathrecent college graduate Penny Baker decides to fix up her dads childhood home in New Jersey. Instead, she finds it occupied by a group of friendly anarchist squatters who have renamed the property Nicotine. The Nicotine residents (united in defense of smokers rights) and the other squatters in the neighborhood provide a sense of community and purpose that Penny feels shes desperately lacking, and she soon moves into a nearby residence, becoming enmeshed in their political fervor.But the rest of her family has other plansher mother and older half-brother would prefer to evict the squatters and gentrify the neighborhood. As the Baker familys lives begin to converge around Nicotine, Penny grows ever bolder and more determined to protect itand its residents, specifically Rob, the asexual man with whom shes fallen irredeemably in love.Nell Zink exquisitely captures the clash between idealism and pragmatism, between the have-nots and the want-mores, in a riotous yet insightful novel that brilliantly encapsulates our time.
