M. T. Anderson, the award-winning author of books for young adults and children, makes his long-awaited adult fiction debut with NICKED, which is based on a bizarre but true story.

In the year 1087, an expedition from the Italian city of Bari set sail for Lycia to steal the corpse of St. Nicholas. The heist was derailed by various issues but was, for all intents and purposes, a success, resulting in the building of a beautiful church in Bari to house the bones. The tomb is now opened once a year to draw out the fluid that leaks naturally from the bones so that it can be dispersed into holy water and sold to pilgrims. Anderson adds his name to the chroniclers of this holy feat...with his trademark satirical spin, of course.

"Based on real historical accounts and dressed in Anderson’s signature combination of satire and wit, NICKED is a once-in-a-lifetime read. Although the premise is wonderfully wacky, Anderson is a skilled, cadenced writer..."

When we arrive in Bari, half the city has succumbed to the pox. The countryside has shunned the city, and the monks remain locked behind their walls, chanting to God for clemency. It is amid these endless chants that the lowly monk Nicephorus falls asleep and is visited by a sacred dream. Saint Nicholas appears to Brother Nicephorus and tells him that the monks can no longer wait, and the time to head out into the streets to help their neighbors is now. The message spurs Nicephorus to visit the sick with water and food. It leads his abbot to believe that Saint Nicholas has grown weary of his final resting spot and has asked Nicephorus to save him...and, you know, bring great wealth and opportunities to their city. After all, pilgrims will travel far and wide for the chance to be blessed by a real saint. Or a fake one, if we’re being honest.

Despite the pox, Bari is a bustling port city, full of crowds of merchants, turbaned Byzantine workmen, Norman soldiers, accountants from the Caliphate in Egypt, and everyday citizens. But on the day that Nicephorus is out helping his fellow men, he finds two most unusual visitors: Tyun, a cocky, charismatic saint hunter (yes, it’s what it sounds like; think Indiana Jones meets Dan Brown), and Reprobus, his dog-headed companion.

Tyun informs Nicephorus’ abbot that Myra, where Saint Nicholas lies, is in a state of chaos thanks to various wars and battles between the Seljuks and the Arabs, the Persians and the Byzantines. The time to, ahem, liberate Saint Nicholas’ body is now. He also tells them that Venice already has set their sights on the corpse, and they have hired him to get it for them. Spewing tales of riches untold and pilgrims traveling from all corners of the world, bolstering Bari’s economy and cementing its title as the greatest port city of all, he tells the abbot that he’ll gladly switch sides and help Bari instead...for double what Venice offered.

If there was ever a time for faith, it is now. Because, as you see, even Nicephorus himself is not certain that the heralded saint truly spoke to him --- after all, it’s not uncommon to carry activities of the day into your dreams, and his dream came after weeks of chanting to the saint --- nor is he sure that it is right (ethically, morally or spiritually) to liberate a saint’s body from where it rests. However, with the sea pushing them closer to Lycia and Myra, an enemy Venetian ship bearing down on them, and Tyun’s own motives unclear, Nicephorus must believe in himself…or nothing.

Anderson takes readers on a mystical, zealous journey unlike any other, but it is his gentle curiosity and compassion for his painfully honest protagonist that gives the novel tender, graceful poignancy. In an act of faith that feels almost meta, he approaches the medieval, the relic and the bizarre with the same quiet, gentle inquisitiveness, placing readers right alongside him and his characters as they parlay with dog-men, bargain with goat herders and fight religious guardians.

Based on real historical accounts and dressed in Anderson’s signature combination of satire and wit, NICKED is a once-in-a-lifetime read. Although the premise is wonderfully wacky, Anderson is a skilled, cadenced writer who is as comfortable penning gorgeous lines about life and death --- “[W]e deceive the ones we love most into believing in miracles… [T]hat deception might be a betrayal or, perhaps, a gift in itself. There is no line between vision and delusion” --- as he is delivering jokes about sex or flatulence.

A work as unique as the journey it describes, NICKED proves that there is no containing the remarkable magic of M. T. Anderson.