Nikolski: A Novel

by Nicolas Dickner, Lazer Lederhendler (Translator)

Overview

Spring 1989. Three young people leave their far-flung birthplaces to follow their own songs of migration. Each ends up in Montreal, each on a voyage of self-discovery, dealing with the mishaps of heartbreak and the twisted branches of their shared family tree.

Filled with humor, charm, and good storytelling, this novel shows the surprising links between cartography, garbage-obsessed archeologists, pirates past and present, a mysterious book with no cover, and a broken compass whose needle obstinately points to the Aleutian village of Nikolski (a minuscule village inhabited by thirty-six people, five thousand sheep, and an indeterminate number of dogs).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590307144
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	05/12/2009
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Nicolas Dickner won two literary awards for his first published work, the short story collection L’encyclopédie du petit cercle. Born in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, he traveled extensively in Europe and Latin America before settling in Montreal.

Read an Excerpt

Noah instantly fell in love with Cesar Sanchez’s old bike.
Standing on the pedals, with a firm grip on the rim of the basket, head down, he feels as though he’s sailing over the neighborhood. The hazards of the road disappear. No more traffic, no more one-way streets, no more driving regulations. All that remain are the landmarks stretched by speed: the Jean-Talon market, the St-Zotique church, an elderly man sitting on his bench, the statue of Dante Alighieri, the alternating butcher shops and shoe-repair shops, a tree-lined sidewalk.
The deliveryman’s job, which he initially viewed as dreary, suddenly seems to him like an ideal way to map out the neighborhood. Riding his bike, he constructs an aerial view of the territory—squares, alleyways, walls, graffiti, schoolyards, stairways, variety stores, and snack bars—and when he talks with the customers, he gathers intelligence on accents, clothing, physical traits, kitchen smells, and bits of music. Added together, the two catalogues make up a complex map of the area, at once physical and cultural.
He tries to transpose his observations onto a map of Montreal, but two dimensions are not enough to contain the wealth of information. Instead he would need a mobile, a game of Mikado, a matryoshka, or even a series of nested scale models: a Little Italy containing a Little Latin America, which contains a Little Asia, which in turn contains a Little Haiti, without forgetting of course a little San Pedro de Macorís.
For the first time in his life, Noah is starting to feel at home.

Editorial Reviews

"There is a real strain of romanticism in Quebec novels. One of the most beautiful is Nikolski, by first-time novelist Nicholas Dickner. It offers a breathtakingly original perception of the world, mixing geography, cartography, and longing in a language and construction both intellectually sophisticated and emotionally affecting."—Globe and Mail

"With the obvious (and wicked?) pleasure of a born storyteller, Nicholas Dickner has us holding our breath with his many narratives that join up in most unexpected ways, continuing to surprise us at every turn."—Prix Anne-Hebert jury (Nikolski wom the prize in 2006 for Best First Book)


“Dickner excites the imagination of the reader to the point of ecstasy.”—Le Monde

"Nikolski is a great success, both for its structure and its imagination."—La Presse

From the Publisher

Dickner's first novel is an odd tale of missed connections, restlessness and the search for home that follows three quirky Montrealites. One story line follows a nameless narrator who works in a second-hand Montreal bookshop and reveres an inexpensive compass sent to him when he was a child by his absent father. Meanwhile, Noah, who grew up in the care of a transient single mother, arrives in Montreal to study archeology and rents a room from the owner of a fish shop. Then there's Joyce, a young woman from a family that claims pirate origins, who washes up in Montreal, finds work in the fish shop and begins her own version of living the family legend. The characters' lives brush up against one another (largely thanks to a book about pirates that, through various personal connections, ends up as the lightly binding force of the three characters' fates) but-in a nice subversion of the "intersecting fates" arc-don't loudly collide. Dickner's three spiritual nomads are strangely fascinating, while Lederhendler's smooth translation makes this offbeat novel all the more attractive. (May)

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