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Nick

Contributors

By Michael Farris Smith

Formats and Prices

Price

$16.99

Price

$22.99 CAD

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. 

  • 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
  • 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
  • “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

On Sale
Jan 18, 2022
Page Count
304 pages
Publisher
Back Bay Books
ISBN-13
9780316529778

Michael Ferris Smith

Michael Farris Smith

About the Author

Michael Farris Smith is an award-winning writer whose novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire, NPR, Southern Living, Garden & Gun, Oprah Magazine, Book Riot, and numerous other outlets, and have been named Indie Next, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections. As a screenwriter, he scripted the feature-film adaptations of his novels Desperation Road and The Fighter, titled for the screen as Rumble Through the Dark. With his band MFS & The Smokes, Smith wrote and released the record Lostville, which was produced by Grammy nominee Jimbo Mathus. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.
 

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