The NIX by Nathan Hill - Some Priceless Scenes Strewn amongst Today's Isolation and 60s Social Revolution

Nathan Hill's novel "The Nix" is an odd & behooving read that grabs one from the get go and never lets the reader know where it's heading next.  Samuel Anderson is our forlorn hero whom we meet at middle age at a flailing midwestern university teaching literature to a class of students who are nonplussed & non present to whatever is presented to them.  Anderson himself is at loss with himself & spends an inordinate amount of time online in a fantasy world with anonymous gamers.  Anderson was abandoned by his mother at an early & raised by his dad in a laissez faire manner.  Hill's hilarious writing, surprising twists & keen observations place The NIX alongside notable writers & social commentaries such as Russo, Irving, Updike & Upton Sinclair.  THE NIX begins betwixt Anderson's startling adolescence and older adulthood.  Anderson's professional career is mired in his own inertia and dissociated, self-indulgent students.   The scene between Anderson & a female student who pleads innocent against plagiarism by lying, denying & conniving.  This winsome waif finds the means to besmirch Anderson & receive accolades for herself.  Hill has his pulse on the today's generation nurtured in ethical nihilism.  Anderson is culpable of a fledgling work ethic.  He spends wasteful time online and remains bereft of social interaction.  Hill cleverly connects today's corrupt political posturing & today's apathetic opposition to the 60s era of protest and social justice.  He's given an advance to write about his mother whom he barely knew but recently has been outed as a militant protestor.  The novel is strewn with unrequited love, loneliness and nuclear armament among other social indignations.  While solving the mystery of his mother's whereabouts, Anderson uncovers corruption, deceit, and lives filled with drudgery and endless toil. Perhaps this explains why  Anderson is far from being alone in finding solace in front of a computer rather than face one's stagnant life.  However, Hill's storytelling is anything but mundane.  THE NIX is a unique dissection of societal morass that releases adrenaline & wit into a marvel of a brilliant novel.  "Nobody cares about antique ideas like true or false?"  THE NIX is a mirepoix of ideas meshing into a beguiling mix of pessimism and optimism - societal dissolution and rejuvenation.  Anderson comes to realize the compulsive immersion in the gaming world blurs the real world when it's essential to realize the real world is what matters.  One cannot endure this world alone.  You will be constantly delighted if you dig deep "...under the hood of someone's life, you will find something familiar."  THE NIX leaves me wanting to read whatever Nathan Hill writes next.