Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City's East Village. Instead she's trapped in East Village, Manitoba: a town with no train station, no bar, and where job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir.
Since her mother and sister have left home, Nomi lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher. Fighting against the restraints of the town, Nomi's longing for a future of opportunity and hope sets her on course towards a climax at once startling and inevitable.
“The most engaging narrative voice I've come across lately… a darkly hilarious novel.” – Black Morrison, The Guardian
'Blithe and earnest, heartbreaking and humorous… From beginning to end the book is unusually calibrated and incredibly compelling.” -- Sarah Hall, The Guardian
'Told with the slouchy, cool grace of a misfit teen, this sparkly novel is destined to become a coming-of-age classic.' ? Elle
'Wry and saturated with comic invention, A Complicated Kindness possesses one of the strongest fictional voices since Holden Caulfield vented his spleen.' ? Time Out