"The Nix" by Nathan Hill

I heard this book described as "David Foster Wallace, but more accessible" so of course I was into that. And there are many similarities between the two authors, but Hill's style is so much easier and it doesn't feel like he's attacking you all the time. He does have a similar structure though where the book jumps from perspective to perspective, and setting to setting. Different chapters could take place in 2011 or 1968, Chicago or Norway. Which makes half of the fun piecing the timeline together. Also they have a similar sense of humor which I think is great, I found this book hilarious.

The main plot of this novel centers around Samuel and his relationship to his mother, Faye, who left him and his dad when he was a little boy. Years later, Samuel is now teaching English at a college when he hears that his mother was arrested for throwing gravel at a presidential candidate. This causes him to go down a journey where he learns about his mother's past while making sense of his own.

There is a lot of interplay with Norse folklore in this story. The title comes from the name of a type of spirit that appears to children in the form of a docile horse. As soon as the child mounts the horse though, it runs off of a cliff. (Irl this is based on a slightly different myth, but this is how it is explained in the story.) Faye interprets this as how the things that you love ultimately hurt you in the end and how she is hurting those around her. This causes her to continually leave people to seek herself, she left her family, she left college, she left her son. This idea of excess is present in other parts of the story, most notably in Pwnage's arc where he is addicted to an online game and it nearly kills him. (I also found his chapters the most amusing to be honest.)

The most interesting character though has got to be Samuel's publisher/Faye's counterculture college fling, Guy Periwinkle. His character serves as a mouthpiece for a fascinating take on life. He sees everything as a fad, something that is in now and can be capitalized upon, including things that we usually hold as more permanent like truth and beauty. He starts out as a college student capitalizing on the counter culture by essentially spreading rumors to make it seem more and more radical than it really is. He is actually working with the police because the police need this radicalization to oppose. When he meets Samuel, he is a book publisher working on the public image of celebrities. He talks about capitalizing on the current political climate without any moral scruples. At one point he says that it is much easier to not be an idealist because then you never have to compare yourself to that. To him, capitalism is evolution at work and inevitable for everyone. Now I don't think that he's right, there's no evidence that we evolve into capitalism, but I think that his ideas are really interesting.

So if you're looking for a book that is a great mix of good ideas, humor, non-linear structure, and readability, I think this is definitely the book for you. It never loses sight of its audience or leaves them in the dust, but it does take you for a ride while commenting on politics and current events.