Nikolski

By Nicolas Dickner

Selected as the 2010 CBC Canada Reads Winner!

Awards for the French-language edition:
Prix des libraires 2006
Prix littéraire des collégiens 2006
Prix Anne-Hébert 2006 (Best first book)
Prix Printemps des Lecteurs–Lavinal

Intricately plotted and shimmering with originality, Nikolski charts the curious and unexpected courses of personal migration, and shows how they just might eventually lead us to home.

In the spring of 1989, three young people, born thousands of miles apart, each cut themselves adrift from their birthplaces and set out to discover what — or who — might anchor them in their lives. They each leave almost everything behind, carrying with them only a few artefacts of their lives so far — possessions that have proven so formative that they can’t imagine surviving without them — but also the accumulated memories of their own lives and family histories.

Noah, who was taught to read using road maps during a life of nomadic travels with his mother — their home being a 1966 Bonneville station wagon with a silver trailer — decides to leave the prairies for university in Montreal. But putting down roots there turns out to be a more transitory experience than he expected. Joyce, stifled by life in a remote village on Quebec’s Lower North Shore, and her overbearing relatives, hitches a ride into Montreal, spurred on by a news story about a modern-day cyber-pirate and the spirit of her own buccaneer ancestors. While her daily existence remains surprisingly routine —working at a fish shop in Jean-Talon market, dumpster-diving at night for necessities — it’s her Internet piracy career that takes off. And then there’s the unnamed narrator, who we first meet clearing out his deceased mother’ s house on Montreal’s South Shore, and who decides to move into the city to start a new life. There he finds his true home among books, content to spend his days working in a used bookstore and journeying though the many worlds books open up for him.

Over the course of the next ten years, Noah, Joyce and the unnamed bookseller will sometimes cross paths, and sometimes narrowly miss each other, as they all pass through one vibrant neighbourhood on Montreal’s Plateau. Their journeys seem remarkably unformed, more often guided by the prevailing winds than personal will, yet their stories weave in and out of other wondrous tales — stories about such things as fearsome female pirates, urban archaeologists, unexpected floods, fish of all kinds, a mysterious book without a cover and a dysfunctional compass whose needle obstinately points to the remote Aleutian village of Nikolski. And it is in the magical accumulation of those details around the edges of their lives that we begin to know these individuals as part of a greater whole, and ultimately realize that anchors aren’t at all permanent, really; rather, they’re made to be hoisted up and held in reserve until their strength is needed again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307375803

Nicolas Dickner

Nicolas Dickner (1972, Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, Canadá) estudió Artes Plásticas y Literatura antes de viajar por América Latina y Europa y ejercer los más diversos oficios. También ­autor de relatos, se hizo conocido para el gran público gracias a su primera novela Nikolski (2005), que cosechó excelentes críticas y un gran número de premios literarios tanto en el original francés como en la versión inglesa. Apocalipsis para principiantes es su segunda novela y ha sido finalista del Gran Premio Literario ­Archambault, y está siendo publicada en varios idiomas. Nicolas Dickner vive actualmente con su familia en Montreal y es crítico literario y cronista en el semanario alternativo Voir.

Reviews for Nikolski

[rknickme · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nikolski falls into that vein of novels about disconnected characters wandering through a landscape and casually brushing against each other through a series of coincidences. I tend to adore such set ups, but in the case of Nikolski there is something lacking in the execution. The tone and writing style are light and humorous making for a quick and for the most part entertaining read. However, for a novel that is ostensibly about a search for one's place in the world there isn't much depth and the characters, while quirky, never seem to develop into fully fledged people. Still, I think this is a decent first novel and I do look foward to seeing what Dickner can do with his next effort.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A light and fluffy book about people whose lives almost intersect. While I found it pleasant enough to read, I felt that it was one of those books where the author was being 'clever'. There wasn't sufficient depth to any of the characters to make me care very much about it. I have no idea how it got on my 'to be read' list....maybe the Canadian connection.

[nickelini · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like its cover, Nikolski is one quirky and playful book. Noah, Joyce, and an unnamed person are connected through their relation to Jonas Doucet, who was last seen in Nikolski in the Aleutian Islands. Through most of the novel they all live in the same neighbourhood of Montreal, but they only know each other tangentially. Nikolski is all about connections and separations. What I liked: Nikolski is very different from anything I've read before, although there was something in the writing style that reminded me of Douglas Coupland--and then I read in an interview that Dickner is a great admired of Coupland and was inspired by his novels. (one point for me!)Dickner makes heavy use of some interesting and unusual motifs, including nomads, islands, Moby Dick, fish and floods, garbage and archaeology, indigenous people and pirates, to name just a few. I look forward to rereading the book at some point and spotting more of these. What I didn't like: This book was a quick and easy read, but I found it too disjointed, which is not something I dislike in books very often. Also, the characters were too static and lacking in development; however, this book has been called a fairy tale, in which case lack of character depth would be expected. Recommended for: the original French version of this book won slews of awards, and the English translation won Canada Reads. I really can't see everyone in Canada reading this book. If you like very jumbled quirky books though, give it a try.

[bookwormjules · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't a good one either. Mainly because almost nothing happens for the entire book. Sure there is a story there, but nothing seems to come together. It's almost like it's separate stories, with one similar link, that all just stop part way through. Each story line had some interesting points to them which I did enjoy, but everything seemed to start and stop in the middle. There wasn't much character development or plot development to the story, it was just a flat line that carried on the same pace throughout the book. The writing was good and the ending was good, but without a complete and developed story, the ending didn't have the impact it should have. In the end not the best book I've read.Also found on my book review blog

[mayap_37 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A short, lovely, inconsequential story about the interconnectedness of people, places and things. Three people move in and out of each other’s lives, barely noticing each other on the rare occasions when their lives do touch.One was born on the road, one travels far from home, one never leaves the district of Montreal where he was born; all of them are linked by garbage, pirates, a battered book with no cover and a cheap plastic compass whose needle points unerringly to the tiny Aleutian Island town of Nikolski.The essence of these stories is the beauty of the small; fantastically detailed, perfectly observed and beautifully told, this is a delight of a book about the magic of the incidental, everyday stuff of life. Nothing much happens. No one goes to Nikolski.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maybe this book will grow on me. It may just be quirky enough to win Canada Reads but I can't say I'll put it as one of my favourites. The following comments contain spoilers so read no further if you haven't read the book.The title refers to a small town (village or hamlet may be more appropriate) on an island in the Aleutian peninsula. It was the site of one of the Distance Early Warning (DEW) line outposts established during the Cold War. It's the place where Noah's father, Jonas Doucet, ended his travels. Jonas is also the father of the part-time narrator of the story. And Jonas is probably Joyce Doucet's uncle or cousin. Noah, Joyce and the narrator come together in Montreal in the 1990's. The narrator has always lived in Montreal but Noah was raised on the prairies with his peripatetic mother driving an old car and trailer from place to place. Joyce grew up on the island of Tete-a-la-Baleine but ran away from the island to discover what happened to her mother. She wants to be a pirate like her ancestors but she settles for working in a fish shop in Montreal to pay her rent until she gets the pirate gig going. Noah has come to attend university (never mind that he has never gone to school -- that's just an insignificant detail I guess) and he intends to study archeology. He ends up sharing rooms above the fish shop with one of the owners. The narrator is a clerk in a used book store in the same neighbourhood. Their paths cross all the time but the three never seem to discover their shared origins.Noah is the first of the trio to leave Montreal. He goes to live with his lover, Arizna, on a small island off Venezuela and help care for their son, Simon. Abruptly he has to take Simon and leave the island when it appears Arizna's grandfather may be bringing the law down on them. He returns to Montreal with Simon after spending some time in the Newark airport. There his path crosses Joyce's who is also fleeing from the law. When he gets to Montreal one of the first places he goes is to the book store to buy dinosaur books for Simon. The narrator serves him, perhaps one of his last customers because he has decided it is time to leave Montreal. The narrator has been cleaning out his apartment and has brought to the store some of his books. One of them is the curious book that is an amalgam of three books with no cover. Noah sees the book and instantly recognizes it as the one that his father left behind and which he brought to Montreal with him. In a more predictable novel this would be the time the half brothers discover their relationship but not in Nikolski. Noah just fishes out the map that was originally part of the book and gives it to the narrator. THE ENDThe mysterious book is a metaphor or perhaps a guide for the three main characters. The first book portion is a study on treasure hunting which could be likened to archeologists digs and is perhaps why Noah chose archeology as his field of study. The second portion is a historical treatise on pirates of the Caribbean. That is certainly meant for Joyce who read that section in the narrator's apartment the night before she left Montreal. The final portion is from a biography of Alexander Selkirk who was shipwrecked on a Pacific island and whose exploits inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe. The unnamed narrator could be likened to Alexander perhaps since he has been stuck in one spot with very little human interaction.There is a recurring theme of garbage in Nicolas. In the prologue the narrator is cleaning out his mother's bungalow and has thrown out 30 garbage bags. Joyce goes dumpster diving to find computers and computer parts to patch together a working computer so that she can commit her twentieth century piracy. Noah's thesis advisor is an acknowledged expert on the archeology of garbage and Noah himself would like to do his thesis in this field. What gets thrown out by people is sometimes all we have to go on to figure out how they lived. There is also the saying "One person's junk is another person's treasure." Probably most people would have looked at the Book with No Name and called it junk but for Noah, Joyce and the narrator it was a treasure map.

[thebookjunky · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. Loved it. A narrative that skitters around, touching down on explanations and descriptions, then takes flight again and moves on, without sentiment for the telling detail. Marvelous. Chose the book after it won the CBC radio program “Canada Reads”. This one must have deserved its win, just from sheer originality and freshness of voice.

[twochris · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a bit strange, but it follows the life a a few different characters who are all pirates. I found it funny and although the characters are odd, they are still believable.

[baubie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first word that comes to mind when I think of reading this book is "relaxing". It follows the lives of 3 people who all, through some means or other, end up in Montreal. Their lives lightly brush up against each other but never truly entangle. Furthermore, the novel doesn't really have a climax or anything exciting happen, and yet, I looked forward to reading the next chapter every time.

[sooguy_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Winner of the 2010 Canada Reads contest hosted by CBC I was intrigued by the setting and premise. Opening in 1989 with three young people from very different backgrounds who leave their familiar surroundings to go on their on journey of discovery that takes them to Montreal where their paths converge however tangentially. I loved Quebec author Dickner's prose that shines through with the guidance of Lazer Lederhendler's translation. Part Kurt Vonnegut yarn and part Chuck Palihnuik fable, I was raving to everyone within shouting distance how much I was enjoying the book while I was reading it.BUT - I found Dickner chickened out with his ending the character paths continuing to the horizon with little or no resolution. Just a new direction. Sure that's how life actually is, but after we invested in these characters as readers we want some more resolution.Sequel maybe? Enjoyed it but have a hard time recommending it knowing others may be equally disappointed with the resolution.

[ringtales · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

don't waste your time this is the shadow of a ghost of a story. scrabblenut as pegged it, people the emperor has no clothes! people appear and behave, in this story as plot devices to keep it moving and it eventually doesn't really move anywhere.

[naisy_4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this book initially difficult to get into, but it was interesting and kept my interest to the end. I think I would need to read it again to uncover more about the characters and the events that link the three of them together.

[scrat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think I am a pretty good reader...but I also think I need to reread this book. In fact, I am sure that I need to reread this book.Set in Montreal and various parts of Canada, this novel tells the story of three different protagonists whose stories are similar in that they are all on a journey of discovery. Joyce Doucet, Noah Riel and an unnamed narrator all search for treasure in obscure places. Somewhat reminiscent of The Waterproof Bible, there are strange references and interwoven stories that I will one day untangle.I really need to reread this book.....

[leahdawn_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved it. An unusual, magical realist type of ramble that doesn't really have a plot, but that doesn't particularly matter.

[ruthseeley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While entertainingly written and beautifully translated, I too am surprised this novel won the Canada Reads 2010 contest - guess I should have listened to the whole debate. The characters are quirky - but not really quirky enough. There are allusions to magic realism, but without mastery of the form. I'm hard pressed to see the point - or the themes - of this novel. We're all ships passing in the night? Our lives sometimes intersect without our really being aware of it? Uh huh.

[kbuxton_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three somewhat aimless, but fascinating, characters and a somewhat aimless plot come together for a fun read. I look forward to future novels by Dickner.

[scrabblenut · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Usually I like books with quirky characters, but not this time. I am surprised that this book won the Canada Reads competition, because there were far better books in the running, such as Good to a Fault, by Marina Endicott, and Generation X, by Douglas Coupland. Nicolski was about the lives of three people, and was mildly interesting, but not compelling at all. The author did not make me care about these characters, and the story was boring.

[neringros · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable and refreshing read, masterfully written (I read it in english translation). I usually like the stories (in both books and movies, actually) where you feel like you are running out of time - there is so much more to discover or questions to answer. This book leaves that lingering feeling - makes you think and contemplate possible outcomes of events. The story follows three seemingly different characters through Canada and beyond trying to find their own way in life. (But no "blame the parents" attitude.)There are other interesting threads in this well-woven tale - the book, the compass and chance encounters as well. I was not particularly interested in the whole radical archaeology string, but it didn't spoil the book for me, just served as entourage.Highly recommend this one for anyone.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 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!

[thesecretllama_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believe Nicolas Dickner to be the love child of Chris Van Allsburg and Thomas Pynchon. Nikolski is as unpretentious as pure imagination could be, but at its heart is convolution and curiosity. This is no mere pirate story, it is a Cerberus of sea tales that aren't really tales of the sea. It is foundationally about the relationships and interactions of three characters, three artifacts, and three stories that converge into and away from one another time and again.The nameless (as nameless as Herman Melville would like him to be) narrator is as much a character as Noah and Joyce. All three are raised in similar circumstances and each hold an item that drives them further into their own lives. One item is a compass that doesn't point North as much as it points to a town called Nikolski. Noah has his coverless book frequently called the "Three-Headed book" that is as much an amalgam as the novel itself is. Joyce has a newspaper article that thrusts her further and further into piracy.Just like Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 is an anti-dectective story, so is Nikolski an anti-sea adventure story. The imagery is surreal, the characters quirky, and the story truly compelling. Dickner is already on my list of must reads.

[lexport · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is full of unique and subtle symbolism. A thorough and careful reading of this novel will yield layers of meaning without any pretensions in the delivery of the story. The characters are intriguing and as a reader I came to adore them all. I am very glad to have read this book.

[blakefraina · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[stronghart · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book is not my cup of tea. Well, let me restate that.Perhaps I like coffee. The reader will need a quiet place to read this very imaginative book. He or she will need to sit down, take several deep breaths, relax, and then perhaps the reader will be ready to burrow into the world created by the author. Three protagonists come from places far away and their lives make contact. All three need to find their own world, away from the place from which they have come. Each uses a different method. In a sense of course, each holds onto his birthright. And in their search for their particular reality each discovers that it was theirs to find before they home. Thomas Wolfe may have posited that "You can't Go Home Again," but not in this book. Home is within ourselves. More like Eliot who wrote, "Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.” Or that for all our exporations we find that the road always leads back to home.

[lmgrim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a delightful book about family, coincidence, and communication across cultures. At the same time it's about pirates, indigenous peoples, trash, and travel. What's not to like?When I began reading I was afraid that it would be precious, but the well developed characters truly lead interesting lives and its impossible not to get caught up in their stories. If this is emblematic of contemporary Canadian fiction, I want to read more. and I will definitely look for Dickner's short story collection.

[rmckeown_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Searching for a word to describe this book, many flood my mind – peculiar, odd, quirky, interesting (yes, most definitely interesting), and, well, I guess they all fit.The story is of three people: an unnamed narrator who works in a book shop, who only occasionally pops into view; a man named Noah, who has lived most of his life in a trailer wandering all over Canada with his mother, wondering about his father who disappeared shortly after his birth, leaving behind a plastic compass (the “Nikolski Compass”) and a handful of letters; and a woman named Joyce who runs away to Montreal in search of her pirate ancestors, lands a job in a fish shop, and becomes a pirate (of sorts) herself. These three characters intersect in odd (there’s that word again) but decidedly interesting ways. Each seems to have a piece of a giant puzzle which centers around a book with no covers. The book store clerk calls it a “unicum” – a term which does not appear in any dictionary or book about books I have. He describes it as a book cobbled together from three different sources and sewn together.I am going to leave it at that. If this isn’t enough to whet your appetite, you need a new appetite, and why are you reading a book blog? 5 stars--Jim, 8/10/09

[cornerhouse_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nikolski is the story of three people -- Noah, Joyce, and an unnamed narrator -- who each migrate in one way or another to Montreal and criss-cross the peripheries of each other's lives. This novel is really a collection of migrations, settlings, and further migrations, of love and loss, and of making a life out of an endless series of startings over.Noah comes to Montreal for college after having lived a rootless, nomadic existence with his vagabond mother. Joyce grows up in a small northern Quebecois village and escapes from the endless round of family ties and the drudgery of keeping house for her father. The unnamed narrator works in a second-hand bookstore and lives alone after the death of is mother, who was herself something of a nomad until she became pregnant and settled down to work in a travel agency and never travel.I read this lively novel in a single sitting one Sunday afternoon, completely enthralled with the shifting mix of stories, characters, and their fortunes. I'd be glad to read more of Dickner's work; I wonder if there's any more translated into English.I have, however, given this novel only 3.5 stars because the character development is a bit thin; the storytelling keeps this from being an entirely damning problem, but one is still left with the feeling that more background and motivation for their actions.

[wrmjr66 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Nikolski, Dickner tracks the lives of three wandering characters whose lives cross--and who share a family tree--but who do not really interact with each other to any great extent. The narrative jumps quickly between the various characters; most chapters are no more than a couple pages. This lends a feeling of disjointedness to the novel, but that mimics some of the disjointedness of the characters themselves. The characters share more than a family tree, as Dickner weaves similar motifs into all of their stories. For example, one character wants to be an archaeologist of garbage who learned to read by looking at maps as he and his mother traversed Canada throughout his essentially homeless childhood. Another steals discarded computer parts from corporate dumpsters and computer books from a used bookstore. The unnamed narrator works in said bookstore and owns a compass that does not point north, but instead points toward the tiny island of Nikolski where his own father had died.Dickner also makes sure to pay homage to his literary precursors. Most significantly, the novel has an ongoing conversation with Moby Dick (the novel opens with the narrator telling us "My name is not important."). Melville's work appears at several other key points in the novel, as if the search for the white whale was somehow a parallel for the lives of these characters. The parallel, though, never really quite works out, and some of the other recurrent allusions to authors like Dante and Joyce are left undeveloped. Those are minor weaknesses in an otherwise strong novel. I'll be looking forward to more of Dickner's work in the future.

[diefledermaus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nikolski was an enjoyable book with a nice prose style – low-key and humorous. However, I felt the pacing was off – the multiple jumps in time and from character to character didn’t allow for much overall development. The best chapters were the opening ones, which introduced all the main characters. The author chose an interesting narrative style – a nameless first person narrator related his own story, which alternated with chapters describing – in the third person – the lives of two related characters, Noah and Joyce. The first person narrator actually had a much smaller role than the other two – I would have preferred more from that narrator, since we actually get to hear his thoughts. His story is quite simple when compared to the Noah and Joyce – his mother died, and in the opening he described his efforts to clean out her house and the questions that were left about his own history. He worked in a used bookstore – skillfully described by Dickner – and had only one reminder of his father – a compass that pointed not to the north, but to Nikolski, a small village in the Aleutian islands. Noah’s life, in contrast, was unstable and nomadic. He and his mother crisscrossed Canada in their trailer, occasionally contacting his father through letters sent at random. Noah’s life started again in Montreal at college, where he crossed paths with a garbage obsessed archaeologist, an extended Dominican family and an elusive woman. Joyce, with an absent mother and a nearly absent father, was not much better off. Her inspiration centered on her family’s long history of piracy, and at the first opportunity she left home to strike out on her own. Working at a fish shop by day, she moved into a different kind of piracy at night. The early chapters were well-written, funny and had just a hint of magic-realist-feel, what with ghosts, pirates and a truck-driving Lenin. As Joyce and Noah make the way to the city, the plot takes off, but I felt the book declined in quality slightly. The jumps in time led to some dialogue that was a bit too full of convenient information, and the short time spent describing a woman who takes on an important role in Noah's life means that readers can't really be invested in the relationship. However, I enjoyed the fact that, while there were some connections between the main characters, the author didn't make any obvious big dramatic scenes between the three. Overall an enjoyable read - since I liked the author's writing style and humor, I will definitely be keeping an eye out for any further novels.

[shimauta_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nikolski was a quick and enjoyable read. The characters, in search of an identity and calling, follow interesting and unexpected paths that cross accidentally from time to time. In contrast to the original story development, the characters themselves are not very well developed, and besides a few glimpses here and there, it is difficult to grasp their nature.

[rubbah_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Extremely readable, I managed to finish this in one afternoon. Nikolski is about 3 people, Noah, Joyce and one unnamed character who all live in Montreal and are all related unknowingly. Coincidences and chance meeting mean they all come loosely into contact with each other, several times, never knowing that the family they are all seeking is so close. I really enjoyed this, and would reccomend it to anyone who wants a quirky interesting read.