The “wonderfully talented” (Dwight Garner, New York Times ) author of Mislaid returns with a “heady, witty” ( Booklist ) novel of obsession, idealism, and ownership, centered around a young woman who inherits her bohemian father's childhood home. Recent business school graduate Penny Baker has rebelled against her family her whole life—by being the conventional one. Her mother, Amalia, was a member of an Amazonian tribe called the Kogi; her much older father, Norm, long ago attained cult-like deity status among a certain group of aging hippies while operating a ‘healing center’ in New Jersey. And she’s never felt particularly close to her much-older half-brothers from Norm’s previous marriage-one wickedly charming and obscenely rich (but mostly just wicked), one a photographer on a distant tropical island. But all that changes when her father dies, and Penny inherits his childhood home in New Jersey. She goes to investigate the property and finds it occupied by a group of friendly and charming anarchist squatters who have renamed the property Nicotine House. The residents of Nicotine House (defenders of smokers’ rights) possess the type of passion and fervor Penny feels she’s desperately lacking, and the other squatter houses in the neighborhood provide a sense of community she’s never felt before. Penny soon moves into a nearby residence, becoming enmeshed in the political fervor and commitment of her fellow squatters. As the Baker family’s lives begin to converge around the fate of the Nicotine House, Penny grows ever bolder and more desperate to protect it-and its residents-until a fateful night when a reckless confrontation between her old family and her new one changes everything.    “ Mislaid is a sprawling multi-generational saga of a Southern family that is as absurd and hilarious as it is tragic and seeing.” - VanityFair.com “Nicotine’s greatest strength is the warmth with which it treats its characters. Even when Zink is being conventional, she’s exemplary. What makes her satire so exciting and so novel is the empathy of her writing... Zink’s prose is energetic and zingy... exciting and provocative...She’s a singular figure in the literary landscape, and Nicotine is a perfect introduction to her brilliant, off-kilter world.” “Not a drop of acid mars the surface of this deadpan satire as it darts along, mocking and skewering the racist, homophobic and generally dingbat ideals of its characters…Zink’s humor is rarely predictable. . . . Mislaid feels like a subversive minstrel show sprung from an encyclopedic mind drunk on the Mad Hatter’s tea.” - Washington Post “Profoundly irreverent and proudly cerebral, Zink peppers her narration with references to Herman Hesse, James Joyce and W.E.B. Du Bois and keeps the pace ticking. . . . Mislaid shows a uniquely zany worldview.” - Los Angeles Times “A high comedy of racial identity: The Human Stain, backward, by David Sedaris. That makes the book a rarity on at least two fronts, because the shortage of smart new novels about race has nothing on the shortage of genuinely funny literary fiction. But Zink is a comic writer par excellence, one whose particular gift is the capacity to keep a perfectly straight face. Both that voice and the stories Zink tells are so startling, so seemingly without antecedent, that she would seem like an outsider artist, if she did not betray so much casual erudition.” - The New Yorker “She’s a deadpan comedian, her sentences funny yet plump with existential dread...You’re never tempted to put Ms. Zink’s novels aside. They contain so much backspin and topspin that you’re kept alert by the leaping motion... Her books are sexy... I could listen to Ms. Zink’s dialogue all day.” - Dwight Garner, New York Times “[A] wild and nervy novel. Zink is a master of rapid character development, shifting perspectives, sex scenes and plot twists. … “Nicotine” was so addictive it made me want to reach for a cigarette when I was done.” - Los Angeles Times “Zink has instantly become one of the most unusual, refreshing voices in contemporary fiction. Her work is completely unfettered by genteel literary conventions and replete with robust storytelling...Both a satire of and a valentine to the 21st-century counterculture, Nicotine is sexy and political and hilarious.” - Slate “Extraordinary... Get the book for its crackling prose and razor-sharp wit, but ready yourself for its blitzkrieg of startling imagery.” - Village Voice “Undeniably excellent... Propulsive... This is Zink at her most heartfelt... Zink is an architect. She builds worlds that look a little like ours, but are wrong enough to make one think―really think, not just feel. ” - New Republic “Smart and often very funny... Even while Zink skewers bohemian stereotypes ― the affluent squatter, the chain-smoking environmentalist ― she cares for her characters, imbuing them with complicated personalities, causes and sexual proclivities. Rich sensory detail, earnest dialog