Nell Zink’s novel, NICOTINE, opens with a flashback into the world of Penny Baker’s mother, Amalia. She is 13 and a homeless runaway from a South American tribe called the Kogi. Flash-forward and we see that Penny’s father, a beloved Jewish shamanist named Norm, has adopted Amalia and then later married her. Penny’s much older half-brothers are the same age as Penny’s mother and lead just as complex lives as their father. Amalia also happens to be in love with Penny’s eldest brother, Matt. The story that unfolds stems from this complicated family’s past of secrets --- which is too deep a rabbit hole for which this review does not have room.

"Zink’s style is full of the verve her readers expect and incorporates into the novel topics of sexuality, classism, identity, death, racism and family ties with almost uncomfortable straightforwardness."

The book’s title refers to the name of an abandoned house in the family’s estate that is now inhabited by a friendly group of anarchists. Like the name suggests, the squatters are all banded together by their tobacco habits. Ironically, these revolutionists have been marginalized to the outskirts of every rally by fellow radicals to designated smoking sections. When the estate is brought to the family’s attention following Norm’s death (written with visceral detail), Penny is sent to scope out the house for property value, but instead finds a band of unconventional people she feels she can better connect with --- cute boys and all.

Penny, an unemployed and a recent business major graduate, is far from living the modern-day American dream. Readers invest in Penny’s familiar struggles --- her desires to live for a cause, finding herself in a poor financial position --- as her life intertwines with the housemates of Nicotine who face similar strife. Though there is a spare bedroom at Nicotine, it is indefinitely occupied by “the monster,” an unstable excrement-filled contraption to bar against any money mongers claiming the property. Finding board at another neighborhood squatter’s house, Tranquility, Zink allows her novel to exhibit a fuller range of millennial-type characters and self-proclaimed anarchists.

The author wields raw and unfiltered emotions in NICOTINE, which is sharply humorous and blanketed with friendly satire, keeping its readers attentive throughout. Does it create a sense of urgency with plot leading us through? Not quite. But what it lacks in plot direction, it makes up for with clever witticism, drama, and characters who are all too representative of young men and women finding themselves in modern-day America.

Zink’s style is full of the verve her readers expect and incorporates into the novel topics of sexuality, classism, identity, death, racism and family ties with almost uncomfortable straightforwardness. NICOTINE is entertaining, mesmerizing for its characters, and addicting to the end (pun intended).