The Nix
Samuel Anderson is a failed novelist teaching English at a small Illinois college, an obsessive online roleplaying gamer, and the long-abandoned son of a mother named Faye who walked out on him at age eleven and never came back. Twenty-some years later, in 2011, a viral video shows Faye throwing a handful of gravel at a far-right presidential candidate at a Chicago rally. Suddenly his estranged mother is national news, and his cynical literary agent demands that Samuel write the tell-all book that will save his contract. The novel that follows moves between Samuel's flailing present, Faye's strange Iowa girlhood, her single semester at a Chicago university during the 1968 Democratic Convention, and a Norse household spirit called the Nix, which Faye's father told her stories about as a child. Nathan Hill's debut, published in 2016, is a sprawling, comic state-of-the-nation novel about American protest, online life, and the wounds parents leave.
Themes & atmosphere
Also by Nathan Hill
What you might want to know about The Nix
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Samuel Andresen-Anderson is a stalled Chicago English professor with an unfinished novel and an MMO habit. His mother, who left the family when he was eleven, surfaces on the news after throwing gravel at a presidential candidate, and his publisher demands a tell-all biography.
The Nix was written by Nathan Hill and published in 2016. It was Hill's debut novel and was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times. He has since written Wellness (2023).
Yes. A series adaptation was announced with J.J. Abrams's Bad Robot and Meryl Streep attached. As of 2025, the project remains in development.
The Nix is 625 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Nix takes most readers 9 to 14 hours to finish.
The Nix is a standalone novel by Nathan Hill, not part of a series.
The Nix is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.