Big Nobody
A Novel
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- $199.00
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- $199.00
Descripción editorial
A wickedly funny coming-of-age novel about a misfit teenager in London determined to eliminate the one thing standing between her and a good life: her father
“Hands down the funniest, most original novel I’ve read in ages.”—Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding
I think it’s safe to say that my father was probably always an abomination of nature.
It’s 1974 in London and Connie Costa’s already pitiful life has gone off the rails. She’s spiraling from the loss of her mother and younger brothers in a tragic accident. And the man responsible is her Dad—otherwise known as “The Fat Murderer.”
Kept at home under his increasingly tyrannical rule, Connie is an outcast who spends her nights conversing with the David Bowie poster on her wall and raiding her stash of whiskey and chocolate. Her only social outlet is the weekly gatherings with her father and their immigrant community of Greek “Freaks.” There she finds her life’s one bright spot: sneaking off with her friend Vas to smoke cigarettes, debate literature, and joke about whether it is finally time to run away together. But when Connie sees an opportunity to get out from under her father’s thumb for good, she must make a perilous decision that will change her forever.
Devastatingly tender and riotously funny, Alex Kadis’ Big Nobody tells a warmhearted story about the rocky path to finding ourselves and the people who keep us afloat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A 40-something woman looks back on her awkward teen years in 1970s London in this bold, hilarious, and surprisingly moving debut. Kadis, a music industry veteran, peppers the narrative with references to the era's glam stars David Bowie and Marc Bolan, who capture the imagination of narrator Constance Costa and offer solace after she loses her British mother and brothers in a car accident. Constance blames her emotionally and physically abusive Greek father, whom she calls "The Fat Murderer," for the deaths, and reels from his "jealousy and psychotic need for control." While fearing she might be her school's "freak," she plots ways to kill her father, and takes in conflicting advice from the imaginary voices of Bowie and Bolan. "If I had cared about what other people thought, I'd never have made ‘The Laughing Gnome,' " Bowie confides, while Bolan presses her to go to the school disco ("you gotta funk or be square"). Meanwhile, she regularly attends her community's Greek Night, or, as Constance calls it, "Freak Night," with the other Greek families in the area. After kissing a boy there, she wonders if things might turn around for her. Kadis successfully balances the dark material with Constance's teen ebullience and whimsy. In this joyful novel, being a "freak" means wielding a double-edged sword.
