The Long Division [Hardcover]

Derek Nikitas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2009

An Atlanta housecleaner flees her nowhere life to reunite with the son she gave up for adoption. The teenage boy joins his longlost mother on an unlawful road trip that proves how much they both have to lose by finding each other. Elsewhere, a deputy must track down the shooter in a drug-related double murder before other investigators discover the deputy’s illicit ties to the case. The killer is an unbalanced college kid hunted by vengeful drug dealers and the police, haunted by loves both dead and for bidden. When the renegade mother and son arrive, past sins and present gambits will ensnare them in the violent endgame between the deputy and the desperate killer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At the start of Nikitas's stellar second novel (after his Edgar-finalist debut, Pyres), Jodie Larkin, a house cleaner in Atlanta, succumbs to temptation—she steals $5,000 and a car from a client—and sets off to visit the son she gave up for adoption and whom she hasn't seen in five years. Cal Nowak, Jodie's now 15-year-old son, lives in Cape Fear, N.C., and is struggling with his sexual identity. Together, Jodie and Cal set off north on a desperate, doomed journey. Meanwhile, SUNY student Wynn Johnston is trying to help a friend rescue the friend's missing sister, and Weymouth, N.Y., deputy Sam Hartwick must deal with his dying wife and a double murder. Sentences, paragraphs, even chapters don't so much end as act like synapses jumping to the next sequence. Nikitas effectively picks up and drops each thread. Beautifully realized characterizations power complex story lines that meet and connect this disparate group with the inevitability of Greek tragedy. (Nov.)
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Review

 "Derek Nikitas reveals a maimed beauty in the darkest recesses of the human heart, and THE LONG DIVISION will stay with you long after you turn the last page.  I loved this book."

 

- Sean Chercover:

"Coming off one of the most accomplished debuts in recent years, Derek Nikitas's second novel, The Long Division, exceeds even the grandest of expectations. As he deftly weaves together three perilous storylines, we feel ourselves simultaneously moved, horrified and brokenhearted as the novel spirals towards its breathtaking conclusion. Nikitas finds beauty and pathos in the smallest of gestures, the largest of actions, the darkest of paths. Not to be missed."

-- Megan Abbott

 

“In its dark heart, this murderous tale is about family, but whether family is our salvation or our doom is the real mystery. Pushed to their breaking points, Nikitas' characters are brutally compelling, his narrative voice riveting. Once again,his storytelling seems powered by a steam-engine, an unstoppable force.”

-- Julianna Baggott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (October 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312363982
• ISBN-13: 978-0312363987
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,152,284 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Derek Nikitas grew up in New Hampshire and upstate New York. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and is currently pursuing his PhD in Creative Writing at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He has published stories in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Ontario Review, Chelsea, The Pedestal Magazine, and others. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and will be a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers' Conference in 2007.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Lifetimes of Vertigo", November 12, 2009

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Long Division (Hardcover)

Make no mistake about it - Derek Nikitas is a brilliant stylist - an original emerging talent who twists and warps his prose with the atmospherics of Faulkner, the quirkiness of McCarthy, but matched with a readability that neither of these venerable giants can match. For my money, his debut, "Pyres", was the book of the year. But having said that - holy smokes! - if there has ever been a more dark, depressing, and downbeat novel than "The Long Division", I don't remember it. This is "The Road" without an apocalypse, or "Fight Club" reading like Nora Roberts pabulum by comparison.

"The Long Division" is the tale of a half-a-dozen or so fatalistically flawed characters, starting with Atlanta maid Jodie Larkin, heading north with stolen cash and a stolen car, and her 15 year old estranged and agreeably kidnapped son, Calvin, in tow. Seeking Calvin's biological father, Jodie and Cal travel to the desolate frozen wastelands of western New York, a cold setting especially fitting for the dark subject matter. Here we encounter deputy Sam Hartwick, arguably the most normal of the cast, though hardly the hero. Enter Wynn Johnson, local SUNY student and mathematics savant, who ends up on the wrong end of murder and a stream of vengeful antagonists on both sides of the law, including the haunted deputy Sam. From this already sordid background, the plot spirals even deeper, penetrating the depths of humanity across a wide range of despair, a "search without a solution" across a tortured landscape of theft, murder, sexual identity, terminal cancer, and suicide.

Yeah, well, did I say it was pretty? But it is powerful. Nikitas landscapes are "tall houses crammed at close quarters like mourners at a funeral." While upstate New York's hostile winter "...wind rocked the car like a gang of vandals..." with "rusted fire escapes and empty clotheslines like stripped umbrellas." Sweet.

So like I said, Nikitas can write, but be forewarned: this guy is the master conductor of the train wreck of human carnage - an extraordinary writer who practices his craft in teen angst and wasted lives - the perfect stand-in should Styx farrier Charon need a day off. If you're looking for an upbeat story, you're on the wrong page. But for an exciting new benchmark in American literature, make sure Derek Nikitas is on your short list.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "She wondered whose reckoning this was and when the mercy would start.", October 27, 2009

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Long Division (Hardcover)

One moment, one impulsive action and events are set in motion that result in a final, terrible reckoning. Jodie Larkin, a lonely housecleaner, grabs a stack of hundred dollar bills from a home where she is working. Thus begins a journey that will take her from Atlanta to Philadelphia to Weymouth, New York in a hapless trail of mistakes and misjudgments. Like the other wounded characters in this compelling novel, Jodie is running on instinct and desperation- in her case towards the son she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. Meanwhile, in Weymouth, New York, Deputy Sam Hartwick, looks the other way and accepts a bribe as a favor to an estranged brother and sister. Wynn Johnston is along for the ride, a friend of the brother, in love with the sister, who has changed from childhood sweetheart to unrecognizable addict, the sweet memories of youth obliterated by drugs. An emotion-sparked moment, gunfire rings, brother and sister are dead, Wynn escaping the filthy trailer along with the druggies. Now Wynn has vengeance on his mind and memories on his heart.

Wynn, a student and mathematics major at SUNY retreats to the comfort of formulas as his world spirals out of control, the author perfectly capturing the young man's distress as well as Jodie's urgency to meet her son, Calvin. Calvin has his own troubles, easily seduced by his mother into running away, perhaps to meet the father he has never known. All of Nikitas's characters are etched in misery, from Jodie's bumbling attempt to bond with Calvin to Deputy Hartwick's beleaguered family, facing a challenge none of them can bear and Wynn's abject confusion in the face of painful loss. All are caught in a jerky dance that propels them towards one another by way of a stolen vehicle, stolen son and finally stolen moments as the pushers rage in defense of territory, bullets flying, bodies falling. Law enforcement plods nearer vital connections and a final, tragic confrontation on Hartwick's frozen front lawn in Weymouth.

The author embraces six degrees of separation, twining people and events in a drama that is striking and driven. Jodie and Calvin forge tentative bonds, guilt intrudes and fate conspires, the two stumbling towards the only place left to go. One cannot help but feel compassion for Jodie, Calvin, Wynn, Sam and his extraordinary wife, Jill, the gun-wielding drug dealers a reminder that Sam has made a serious mistake in judgment, Wynn compounding the danger. As fraught with faults as any real-life protagonists, this gallery of souls in need of a mercy is particularly compelling, all fighting to survive an indifferent world, past mistakes rising like a phoenix, demanding resolution, the ties of family sundered and repaired, dreams shattered in a moment of final, heartbreaking violence. Nikitas is a masterful puppeteer, his characters flying from present to past to present in a drama that reads like a Greek tragedy, devastating and memorable. Luan Gaines/2009.

5.0 out of 5 stars Read. This. Book., April 14, 2010

By 

Matthew McAlister "Matthew" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Long Division (Hardcover)

I've never written a review on amazon, but after seeing the 3 1/2 star rating on this wonderful novel, I felt compelled to finally contribute.

I normally read a lot of literary fiction. I don't like brainless prose. I like character development, characterization, and prose that feels fresh. I read a lot, so when I come across something that truly stands out, that says something.

I first read Derek Nikitas' novel Pyres, which was a refreshing breath of literary writing into what I felt was a cold, dead, wasteland of formulaic genre fiction. I loved that novel so much that I pre-ordered his second novel, The Long Division, here on Amazon.

I was not disappointed. Another reviewer pointed out that the prose gets in the way of the story. This is not the case at all. The prose here is economical. In Pyres there were many thick passages of beautiful prose, but here, Nikitas has pared down his writing and incorporated the use of jump cuts (using film techniques in writing is something I found wholly original and admirable) that sometimes switch scenes even in a line of dialogue. The effect isn't disorientating like you might think; instead, it keeps the pace up and the action high. You can fly through this novel in a few hours. I read the novel in one sitting. It's that intense.

Other reviews do a better job of summarizing the plot. This being my first review, I'd probably just botch it anyway. The important thing here is that Nikitas is one of the only crime writers I've read whose writing ability rivals that of my favorites: Denis Johnson, Cormac McCarthy, Michael Chabon.

If you have any doubt, look at the reviews of his other novel, Pyres. That's a great book, but this one is better. Do yourself a favor. If you have any interest in crime fiction or literary fiction, read this book. You'll be reading a new writer who, after the course of his career, will be remembered as one of the greats.