The prose in this novel is exceptional, as well as the pacing/structure... and anyone who's endured humiliation at the hands of snotty teenagers will find it cathartic.

"No, no, no. Not yet, and not ever! You "masters of the universe" types, you spooks, you liars, you manipulative how-do-ye-doers with your manly handshakes and your deceitful small talk and your searching glances and your understanding nods - you sorry lot, you brood of vipers will NOT reverse this!" (The unnamed narrator tells it like it is on page 10).

Having just read (and loved) author Andy Nowicki's previous book: The Columbine Pilgrim, I was ready for more, and hence I searched my shelves for a further dosage of the same author. As it so happens, I had this slim volume available, amongst my rather numerous tomes. Andy Nowicki has been a prolific author these last few years, with his published novels (which I'll be sure to read shortly): Considering Suicide and The Doctor and the Heretic and Other Stories. Nowicki was known to me as a skilled polemicist from such internet venues as Counter-Currents Publishing and Alternative Right, where he comes off as a very sensible man with a Catholic bent, and a calm gentleman-like persona. In this particular novel he once again ventures into the domain of psychology, which I'm starting to see is a favourite of his. The story involves a despairing seminarian that gets rejected for psychological reasons from the priesthood he has poured all his hopes and angst of growing up into, the one path that will set it all right. When that gets taken away from him, he begins a fast journey towards rock bottom. As it so happens, as he awakens one day in a hospital bed, there is a man by his side, one of the men alluded to in the first quote. This man has an offer for our unnamed protagonist, all he has to do is take a pill in the evening and a pill in the morning, and he'll be monitored along the way. Otherwise, he shall live his life as usual, and they'll see what happens. For that, he'll be handsomely rewarded. As one can imagine, he accepts the deal, since he after all has nothing to lose, the way he sees it. He goes, "into the Nihil", a fitting name, seeing as the pill supposedly is designed to remove any inhibitions the consumer might carry.

Now, this book wouldn't be published by esteemed critic of Modernity Counter-Currents Publishing and editor Greg Johnson (author of Confessions of a Reluctant Hater) if it didn't include at least one diatribe against Modernity, and here you shall have at least a little dosage (on the much celebrated American 'freedom'): "Freedom to drop their venerable old traditions, which gave their lives a sense of meaning and their deaths a sense of closure? Freedom to jettison their connection with the ancient, and embrace unshackled materialism? Freedom to degrade themselves, debase themselves, corrupt themselves, turn themselves into animals, into something *worse* than animals?" This is hardly a book for children, but if you like dark tales, a bit similar to ones like Mister, then this should be your cup of tea. I enjoyed the short read, and look forward to finishing my Andy Nowicki tour-de-force with his last two books. Four stars and recommended for fans of the genre.

Nowicki's fourth novella, Under the Nihil is a more difficult work to tear into than his previous outings, because it's considerably less hamfisted with its themes and motifs. Nihil concerns an unnamed protagonist who, after being expelled from seminary school for being suspected of being a child molester, accepts an assignment from a "Mr. X" to test out an experimental new drug known as "nihil."

One of the novel's most interesting aspects is that it's written in the second-person, under the guise of the protagonist's letters to Mr. X. It's a surprisingly effective conceit that plunges you deep into the story, from the protagonist's shacking up with a past-her-prime single mother to his final act of rebellion. The book's plot twist is one of the finest I've read in a modern work of fiction; it's both predictable yet unpredictable, and a striking commentary on the modern conception of "nihilism."

Overall, Under the Nihil is a brilliant, if somewhat obtuse, read.