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A Novel
by M.T. Anderson
Book Reviewed by:From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous and slyly funny adult fiction debut, about the quest to steal the mystical bones of a long-dead saint
The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian port city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to action. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.
Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for "liberating" holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas rest in distant Myra, Tyun explains, and they're rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick. For the humble price of a small fortune, Tyun will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the "dreamer," will be his guide.
What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides—and alongside even stranger bedfellows—to commit an act of sacrilege. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a wildly imaginative, genre-defying, and delightfully queer adventure, full of romance, intrigue, and wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.
I
The monk heard that a ship had arrived carrying one of the dog-headed people whom travelers speak of when they tell tall tales of the one-eyed and the winged, and he went out to the docks to see if it was true. This is how he first laid eyes on the relic thief; this is how the voyage to steal the corpse of Saint Nicholas began.
In an age of sickness; in a time of rage; in an epoch when tyrants take their seats beneath the white domes of capitals—I call upon Saint Nicholas, gift giver, light bringer, wonder worker, who saved the living from drowning and pasted together the dead from their pickling jars, who even after death gave of himself in medicinal ooze; I ask Saint Nicholas to tell us a tale to pass a winter night, so that when we rise in the morning, we may feel resolute in the new dawn.
I will tell the story of the heist of St. Nicholas's body from its tomb. I will tell it as it was told to me by musicians and drunkards and guidebooks and lovers.
Though I am an unbeliever, ...
Nicephorus, a lowly monastery clerk, sets sail on the quest of a lifetime. On the way, he encounters sailors, adventurers, and mercenaries from across Europe, Asia, and Africa, including those who are Muslim or who worship no god at all. M.T. Anderson is an award-winning author of numerous books for children and young adults, and here he seamlessly applies his storytelling skills to his first novel for adults. As he explains in an afterword, the seemingly outlandish adventures he chronicles are based on the historical record. But the novel is far more than a straightforward factual account. This is a world where miracles and magic are accepted as fact, where no one questions that men with the heads of dogs can serve as sailors. Nicked is also a gentle, sweet coming-out story, as Nicephorus allows his newfound openness and spirit of adventure to extend to his human relationships (readers who enjoy the mixture of history, humor, and queer love story in the TV show Our Flag Means Death will find much to appreciate here)...continued
Full Review
(678 words)
(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
George Saunders, author of Liberation Day and Lincoln in the Bardo
Anderson is a once-in-a-generation perfect storm of wit, ethical zing, and sheer linguistic power. Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt and Cuckoo
Witty and deeply affecting, a pointed send-up of power, theology, ownership, and the divine, all executed with masterful flair. Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
Miracles, marvels, saints, sinners, love, plague, and treachery! M. T. Anderson has laid out a medieval feast of a novel, stuffed with everything I could have wished for. If I could canonize him for it, I would. But I'll settle for shouting about how much I love this book.
M.T. Anderson's novel Nicked is based on a real-life relic theft occuring when, in 1087, an expedition from Bari, Italy, traveled to Myra, in present-day Turkey, to steal the bones of St. Nicholas. Even today, St. Nicholas's primary reliquary can be found in Bari, where pilgrims can buy holy water infused with the "myrrh" his bones supposedly produce. This heist, while entertaining enough to be the stuff of fiction, is but one of dozens of examples of relic theft throughout history, a phenomenon known as "furta sacra."
In his book by the same name, historian Patrick J. Geary cites more than one hundred documented thefts during the period from roughly the ninth to the twelfth centuries. It's no wonder that there was a brisk ...
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