Charming 'Hex' Insists On Beauty And Joy
Rebecca Dinerstein Knight's oddball new novel follows a newly unemployed scientist, lovesick for her former mentor — but convinced of her own worth and her need for a life full of beauty.
by Lily Meyer
Apr 04, 2020
3 minutes
Rebecca Dinerstein Knight's strange and delightful second novel, , opens with its protagonist in crisis. Nell Barber is an ex-doctoral student at Columbia; her lab, which studied toxins, has been disbanded after a student accidentally poisons herself, and now Nell is floating through New York, grief-stricken and in need of work. She's also profoundly lovesick for her dissertation advisor, a magnetic young botanist named Dr. Joan Kallas. Without Joan's "absolutely necessary nearness," Nell is undone. She describes herself as "deleted." She spends her time
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