Nicolas Dickner

Some books make you feel; other books make you think.

Nicolas Dickner’s clever debut, Nikolski, definitely falls largely into the latter category. As a matter of fact, it still has me turning over its intricacies in my head months after I’ve finished it. This tightly woven tale is packed with ideas that challenge customary thinking about the nature of personal identity. Dickner asks if who we are is a result of nature or nurture, genealogy or geography, or, perhaps, a combination of all show more four.

Early in the story, we are introduced to the three main characters, all distantly related, although not necessarily aware of one another’s existence. They are the unnamed narrator – a second hand bookshop clerk who is in possession of a compass that always points in the direction of Nickolski, a tiny Aleutian Island, Noah - son of an itinerant Native American mother and absentee father who learned to read from roadmaps and Joyce - restless young woman descended from a family of French-Canadian pirates. The three stories unfold in alternating chapters as each begins a pilgrimage to unearth their family connections, seek their place in the world, establish their destinies and find themselves.

Like the Nickolski compass, the writer postulates that all people have a built-in homing instinct. A family of Dominican fishmongers, who rent a room to Noah and employ Joyce in their retail shop, despite being long time residents of Canada, hold a monthly “jututo” to enjoy their native foods and boisterously debate Dominican politics. And humorously, we see how Joyce (and her erstwhile mother) inadvertently fall into a twentieth century version of the family business - as computer pirates. Ties to place, ethnicity and family not only dictate our actions, but define who we are.

This was a deceptively easy and enjoyable read. There was a certain sense of mystery, plus a fair bit of suspense, that pulled me along until the end. It’s particularly impressive to see how the author weaves all the threads together. Much like the “three-headed book” that passes through the hands of both Noah and Joyce, before ending up on the bookstore’s shelves, Dickner manages to stitch three disparate stories into one cohesive, and endlessly captivating, whole. Definitely one of a kind. show less

Several days after finishing this novel, I'm still thinking about it and discovering more about the story. This really is a deceptively simple but amazing book.

What I am still discovering is what the book is about. Because it is about a lot of things: nurture vs nature, and how we are shaped by our history. It's about home -- what is means and where it is. It's about the impact absent parents have on their children. It's about family. And about pirates, a compass, and a book with no show more face.

This is the story of three young people. A nameless narrator who works in a bookstore and treasures a compass that points unerringly to a small town called Nikolski where his father was last known to live. His half-brother Noah (although they don't know of each other) who was raised by his mother in a trailer criss-crossing the central Canada after she lost her Indian status and her right to live on the reserve. And their cousin Joyce (again, the characters don't know of each other) who was abandoned by her mother and descended from pirates. The three arrive in Montreal around the same time, and the story tells of their lives.

The writing is very strong, with good descriptions of the characters and a keen sense of humour. The ending was not at all what I expected -- I could never have made it that perfect! show less

The unnamed protagonist in Nikolski awakes to the rumbling sounds of the surf hitting the shores of the Aleutian islands, until he realizes that it is the diesel engine of a garbage truck just outside his window. Geography, marine biology, stories of pirates, Moby Dick, and the archeology of garbage (yes!) are themes that connect the lives of Joyce, Noah and the unnamed clerk who works in the S.W.Gam bookshop in Montreal. The three characters don't know each other, but their paths cross, and show more only the lucky reader will know after a while that they share more than their desperate desire to know who they are — a difficult task if the only tangible proof of your father's existence is a toy compass — and how to make an impact in the world.
It is a story of absent parents and how their lives will always be connected with the lives of their children. It is a coming of age story, as a young man who doesn't know his father, discovers that he is good at parenting, and a bookstore clerk, who felt comfortable hiding in the world of antique books, decides to do something with his life, and last but not least of a young woman, who embarks on a flight to an island in the Carribean inspired by a family saga.

The story will send readers to an atlas or Google Earth to look up Nikolski, and yes, they will find it, a village on Umnak Island at the Southwestern tip of the Aleutians. Then there is a remote island near Venezuela and Tête-à-la-Baleine, one of 3 French-speaking communities on the Lower North Shore, at the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Quebec.

Nothing in this literary novel is ordinary or common. The three interconnected stories share a theme within a theme as they celebrate storytelling itself: the lore of pirates, the stories that we are told by the items that others discard ("archeology of garbage"), the fragmented notebooks that a mother left behind and the stories we tell our children.
Nikolski is an impressive debut novel, a story that begs to be read again, as only the first layer of linguistic and semantic connections will jump of the page the first time around.

For a fun interview with the author Nicolas Dickner visit:
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/7/interview-with-author-nicolas-dickner-82... show less

Nicholas Dickner tells his story with a plain, charming, and easy-going, blue-jeans sort-of- style—as if he's just across the table from you. It works really well with the three characters he's created - Joyce, Noah and our narrator - all young, and each from different parts of Canada, each a bit restless, with nomadic tendencies of their own, or somewhere in their family history.

As you learn their stories, you also learn that they all are tied to the same family tree, blissfully ignorant show more of each other, and, as if following some internal compass, they all converge in Montreal. Now, if you think you know where the author is taking this, stop right here and leave those thoughts in the closest trash bin.

Nikolski is a charming story of self-discovery, fish, pirates, nomads and Canada. While I was a wee bit disappointed in how the book ended (in that my expectations were not fulfilled), I will be looking to see what else this new-to-me author has written and is translated. show less