The Nicotine Chronicles

by Lee Child

Overview

Lee Child recruits Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Ames, Cara Black, and others to reveal nicotine’s scintillating alter egos.

“Sixteen tributes to America’s guiltiest pleasure . . . Even confirmed anti-smokers will find something to savor.” —Kirkus Reviews

In recent years, nicotine has become as verboten as many hard drugs. The literary styles in this volume are as varied as the moral quandaries herein, and the authors have successfully unleashed their incandescent imaginations on the subject matter, fashioning an immensely addictive collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617758591
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	09/15/2020
Series:	Akashic Drug Chronicles
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lee Child, previously a television director, union organizer, theatre technician, and law student, was fired and on the dole when he hatched a harebrained scheme to write a best-selling novel, thus saving his family from ruin. Killing Floor went on to win worldwide acclaim. Lee was born in England of a Belfast-born father, but now lives in New York City and leaves the island of Manhattan only when required to by forces beyond his control.

Hometown:

Birmingham, England

Date of Birth:

1954

Place of Birth:

Coventry, England

Education:

Sheffield University

Website:

http://www.leechild.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Thank You for Not Smoking

“Park & Play” by Hannah Tinti

“My Simple Plan” by Ariel Gore

“The Renovation of the Just” by Christopher Sorrentino

“Deathbed Vigil” by Jonathan Ames

Part II: Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health

“Dying for a Cigarette” by Lee Child

“The Smoke-Free Room” by Achy Obejas

“Spécial Treatment” by Cara Black

“Yasiri” by Michael Imperioli

Part III: Hungry for Flavor?

“Smoking Jesus” by Eric Bogosian

“The Summer You Lit Up” by Lauren Sanders

“Climax, Oregon” by Robert Arellano

“Freshly Cut” by Peter Kimani

Part IV: Inhale to Your Heart’s Content

“Smoke Break” by David L. Ulin

“God’s Work” by Bernice L. McFadden

“Menthol” by Jerry Stahl

“Vaping: A User’s Manual” by Joyce Carol Oates

Editorial Reviews

07/13/2020

The varied latest collection in Akashic’s Drug Chronicles Series (The Marijuana Chronicles) focuses on smoking over the course of 16 stories that see characters battle their demons and set their moral baselines. The most successful entries delve bone-deep into addiction, as characters smoke to smother physical pain, loneliness, and their days. In Child’s “Dying for a Cigarette,” a stubborn screenwriter adds smoking into his script as a way to indicate “a small human weakness,” not realizing his smoke breaks during a lunch with producers allow the Hollywood execs to exploit his own weakness and get their way. Joyce Carol Oates’s “Vaping: A User’s Manual” follows a high school athlete’s account of his vape addiction, which deepens after his mother’s cancer worsens. A cop in Bernice L. McFadden’s “God’s Work” kidnaps girls for a black-market ring run by a priest, all the while judging others based on their smoking habits. Despite the obvious reasons not to smoke, quitting would often be too much of a sacrifice, as a character in Eric Bogosian’s “Smoking Jesus” realizes. Some stories, however, simply employ cigarettes as props, making the collection feel padded. At the high points, these writers capture the mental gymnastics behind the characters’ bad decisions, and the joy such bad decisions can bring. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Typically for Akashic—publisher of the terrific Noir series—the stories approach the subject matter from an impressive number of angles . . . Akashic has yet to produce a dull anthology, and this one is especially good."

Booklist

Critical praise for Lee Child:
"Child is one writer who should never be taken for granted."
—New York Times
"Child's writing is both propulsive and remarkably error-free, and he's expert at ratcheting up the tension."
—Los Angeles Times
"A superb craftsman of suspense."
—Entertainment Weekly
"Child is a deliberate stylist and his prose is taut, dynamic, and highly-sprung."
—Spectator, "Five Reasons Why the Jack Reacher Novels are Brilliant"
"Wily plotting, swift pacing, mordant wit: Child is one skillful writer."
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2020-06-17
Sixteen tributes to America’s guiltiest pleasure.

Although editor Child acknowledges that his current collection may be more controversial than his contributions to The Cocaine Chronicles (2005) and The Marijuana Chronicles (2013), his approach to curating these tobacco tales is unapologetic. Cigarettes are above all a bonding experience. They connect a downtrodden motel maid and her employer in Hannah Tinti’s “Park & Play.” Resistance fighters use them to pass messages in Cara Black’s “Spécial Treatment.” They bring a visitor to Havana together with an unexpected kindred spirit in Achy Obejas’s “The Smoke-Free Room.” They help a compromised cop get out of a jam in Robert Arellano’s “Climax, Oregon.” In Peter Kimani’s “Freshly Cut,” they help Wacera, a country girl gone astray, find fellow villagers to lead her home. Child himself shows how smoke breaks can save the day in “Dying for a Cigarette.” But smoking provides solace even to outsiders like the expatriate heroine of Ariel Gore’s “My Simple Plan” and the feisty teenage lead of Lauren Sanders’ “The Summer You Lit Up.” And for the mystic at the heart of Michael Imperioli’s touching “Yasiri,” tobacco is little short of salvation. Even the more smoking-skeptical takes, like Christopher Sorrentino’s “The Renovation of the Just” and Jonathan Ames’ “Deathbed Vigil,” acknowledge tobacco’s allure. Only Joyce Carol Oates comes out foursquare against nicotine in “Vaping: A User’s Manual.”

Even confirmed anti-smokers will find something to savor.

Kirkus Reviews