Publishers Weekly
★ 05/06/2024
YA author Anderson (Feed) makes an auspicious adult debut with this rollicking tale of 11th-century relic hunters. After Brother Nicephorus, a Benedictine monk in the pox-riddled Italian city of Bari, has a dream about St. Nicholas, the archbishop orders him to travel to Myra, in the Byzantine Empire, to procure the saint’s bones, which are reputed to leak a mysterious liquid that can heal those afflicted with the disease. Accompanied by legendary relic hunter Tyun and his dog-man sidekick, Reprobus, Nicephorus sets sail for Myra, only to discover they are in a race with a rival crew of Venetian relic hunters. After reaching Myra, Nicephorus and company experience many setbacks on their way to disinter the bones from the basilica where they are guarded. Anderson stocks the exhilarating narrative with sea battles, comely spies, duels, and double crosses, and succeeds at transporting the reader back to 11th-century Italy and Byzantium. Readers will be swept up in this marvelous adventure. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary. (July)
From the Publisher
"Anderson is a once-in-a-generation perfect storm of wit, ethical zing, and sheer linguistic power."
—George Saunders, author of Liberation Day and Lincoln in the Bardo
"M. T. Anderson is one of our greatest and most precious voices. His books aren't just brilliantly witty and vastly entertaining, they're fixed stars of wisdom and sanity in our increasingly unhinged universe. When lost, I use them to steer by."
—Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians Trilogy
"Witty and deeply affecting, a pointed send-up of power, theology, ownership, and the divine, all executed with masterful flair."
—Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt and Cuckoo
"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."
—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
"A miracle worker, M. T. Anderson has exhumed the bones of holy legend and startled them to life. Nicked is a far-fetched caper based on the actual heist of the corpse of Saint Nicholas. At once blessedly comic and acerbic, Anderson’s confession of devotion to the unresolvable mysteries of faith and love had me laughing out loud and tearing up—nearly simultaneously."
—Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Elphie
"Enthralling . . . in a novel this funny, it would be all too easy to let an omniscient, present-day narrator earn laughs at the expense of its characters’ outdated beliefs, but Anderson instead approaches the medieval with curiosity and compassion . . . . An always entertaining and unexpectedly poignant adventure as rare and gleaming as a reliquary."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"[A] rollicking tale . . . Anderson stocks the exhilarating narrative with sea battles, comely spies, duels, and double crosses, and succeeds at transporting the reader back to 11th-century Italy and Byzantium. Readers will be swept up in this marvelous adventure."
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
"The cleverness of this page-turner begins with its title . . . NBA-winning author M.T. Anderson's humorous, suspenseful adult debut, inspired by an actual 11th-century heist of St. Nicholas's remains, deftly demonstrates the circularity of human history."
—Shelf Awareness
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-05-04
A cloistered monk and a relic hunter must work together to steal St. Nicholas’ bones in this enthralling work of historical fiction based on true events.
In the midst of a 1087 pox outbreak in Bari, Italy, the terminally honest Brother Nicephorus dreams of St. Nicholas. While Nicephorus interprets the vision as an exhortation to leave the abbey and minister to the sick, his abbott and other town leaders see it as a saintly cry for help: Nicholas is clearly unhappy with his current resting place in Myra and wishes for his mystically healing bones to be brought to Bari. After a speedy vetting process, the sly Tartar Tyun is hired to relocate the holy corpse, with Nicephorus supervising to make sure the treasure hunter holds up his end of the bargain. On a ship teeming with odd and imposing crew members from across Europe and Asia, the unlikely pair sets out to burgle St. Nicholas Church. Mishaps and acts of derring-do, interspersed with tales of St. Nicholas’ miracles, ensue. In a novel this funny, it would be all too easy to let an omniscient, present-day narrator earn laughs at the expense of its characters’ outdated beliefs, but Anderson instead approaches the medieval with curiosity and compassion. Here is a world where spiritual scammers might live alongside genuine dog-men and where devotion to the body—living or dead—can be serious, sensual, and irreverent. This, plus rich prose (“the company of relic thieves appeared like this to him, scattered, tenuous; for the victory feast of one creature, he knew well, was always the corpse of another”) and a queer slowest-of-slow burns, should shoot this to the top of a heist lover’s to-read list.
An always entertaining and unexpectedly poignant adventure as rare and gleaming as a reliquary.
