The Everlasting Story of Nory (1998)

by Nicholson Baker

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469	10	53,177	(3.5)	10
Our supreme fabulist of the ordinary now turns his attention on a 9-year-old American girl and produces a novel as enchantingly idiosyncratic as any he has written. Nory Winslow wants to be a dentist or a designer of pop-up books. She likes telling stories and inventing dolls. She has nightmares about teeth, which may explain her career choice. She is going to school in England, where she is mocked for her accent and her friendship with an unpopular girl, and she has made it through the year without crying. Nicholson Baker follows Nory as she interacts with her parents and peers, thinks about God and death-watch beetles, and dreams of cows with pointed teeth. In this precocious child he gives us a heroine as canny and as whimsical as Lewis Carroll's Alice and evokes childhood in all its luminous weirdness.… (more)

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The author has succeeded in capturing the voice of a nine-year-old girl with remarkable accuracy, but the novel's story is almost as rambling and pointless as the protagonist's compositions found throughout the text. (

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gcthomas | May 7, 2022 |

If you are the type of person who generally finds children to be charming, you will likely be utterly charmed by this book.

If however, you are like me, and find most children to be tiresome, you will find this book tiresome.

The writing really does brilliantly capture the voice of a precocious child. Points for craftsmanship. (

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Kesterbird | May 18, 2017 |

Nicholson Baker is an amazing writer, with a talent to write a variety of stories in different styles. The writing in this book is excellent, with Mr. Baker using the voice of a nine-year-old girl in a highly believable manner. Unfortunately, the concept is more intriguing than the story, which I found rather boring. (

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LynnB | Aug 15, 2015 |

Nicholson Baker's children's book....for adults. It's not that the language is rough (it's not) or that there's anything particularly graphic (I could have done without one dream sequence however), it's more the train of thought. Although I don't know if "train of thought" would be the proper term since the train is rarely on the tracks. In typical Baker style, he's all over the place with observations of the commonplace, but in this case, from a little girl's point of view. It didn't really work until about two-thirds of the way through when he cut down on the random a little and followed a steady storyline. I'm glad I read on to that point, I almost put the book down before that. It didn't make the book great, but it at least made it ok. (

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Sean191 | Aug 11, 2010 |

"The Everlasting Story of Nory" by Nicholson Baker is as fleeting as a child's imagination. Baker's book consists entirely of vignettes from a nine year old American girl living in England life and the stories that she creates. Baker is quite good at capturing the conversations and thought process of a young child but there is not much of a plot. I only read about half of the book because the descriptions of Nory's every day life were just too banal for my taste. (

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unknown_zoso05 | Jul 25, 2009 |

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▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Dublin Literary Award (Longlist – 2000)

Notable Lists

1,000 Books to Read Before You Die Page-A-Day Calendar (2021)

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Canonical title

The Everlasting Story of Nory

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1998

People/Characters

Eleanor "Nory" Winslow

Important places

Threll, England, UK

Important events

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Epigraph

Dedication

For my dear daughter Alice, the informant

First words

Eleanor Winslow was a nine-year-old girl from America with straight brown bangs and brown eyes.

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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▾Book descriptions

Our supreme fabulist of the ordinary now turns his attention on a 9-year-old American girl and produces a novel as enchantingly idiosyncratic as any he has written. Nory Winslow wants to be a dentist or a designer of pop-up books. She likes telling stories and inventing dolls. She has nightmares about teeth, which may explain her career choice. She is going to school in England, where she is mocked for her accent and her friendship with an unpopular girl, and she has made it through the year without crying. Nicholson Baker follows Nory as she interacts with her parents and peers, thinks about God and death-watch beetles, and dreams of cows with pointed teeth. In this precocious child he gives us a heroine as canny and as whimsical as Lewis Carroll's Alice and evokes childhood in all its luminous weirdness.

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