Staff Pick November 2016 
 Nathan Hill's debut may be 600 pages, but it is most definitely worth your time. 
 It follows Samuel Andreson-Anderson, a literature college professor struggling to follow the success of his first published novel years before. To have some semblance of control in his life, he plays an online multiplayer game a la World of Warcraft. His publisher threatens to terminate the contract if he doesn't deliver a manuscript soon, and when his mother Faye resurfaces in his life following a conviction (she had thrown gravel at a governor at a rally in Chicago), Samuel's publisher comes to him with the plan for him to complete a tell-all memoir about her, the 'Packer Attacker'. Herein Samuel confronts his mother, to uncover why she abandoned him without a goodbye when he was a child, in an attempt to save his writing career. But like all great books, expansive and deep, Samuel and Faye go on an unexpected journey into the past, revisiting the ghosts they've tried to forget, both getting more than they bargained for in the process. 
 At times I thought some chapters, characters and perspectives could have been culled in the editing process, but when everything came together in the end and my jaw dropped at the brilliance of Hill's narrative and skill in tying all the elements together, I couldn't fault anything. The Nix reads almost like many novellas bound together, traversing time, place and character to unearth the secrets and pasts of Samuel and Faye in an otherworldly, almost ethereal perspective. I was engaged with the story from the very beginning, at times needing to reread when revelations were revealed. 
 The Nix is about empathy and reflection, family and forgiveness, history and the power of memory. If you've read and enjoyed Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch I recommend delving into Hill's novel and going along for the ride.