Description
“I go forth, without apprehension, to my own abortion; I will dilate myself, extract myself, blow myself up.”
Enter the life of an unnamed American man. Ejected from Catholic seminary school for his social awkwardness, pitied and loathed by his family, he has failed at everything in life. After being hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, he’s approached by a government agent who offers to pay him to test out an experimental drug designed to make people as fearless as Muslim suicide bombers. He takes the deal, sending him on a bizarre adventure that destroys him and everyone he knows.
Under the Nihil is a bleak look at comfort, freedom, and inhibition in modern society. Andy Nowicki’s second novella is an analysis of American values, its endless wars in the Middle East, and what happens when a nation addicted to leisure must confront those who fear nothing, not even death.
Originally published by Counter-Currents Publishing in 2011, Terror House Press is proud to bring this modern classic back into print.
“…if you are an embittered American male who has permitted our feminized society to emasculate you and you now find yourself little more than a testosterone-leakage cipher in a cultureless society, than Under the Nihil was written for and about you.” — James LaFond, JamesLaFond.com
“Nowicki’s novels are always a deep dive into the abyss, but with an undertow of cosy humour and philosophical irony to soften the fall. Under the Nihil is no different. ‘Would I be happy being happy?’ the hero asks as he contemplates joining an MKUltra-like project that promises to free him from the petty fears and desires that chain and confine most of us. Along the way, we find out the most effective way to humiliate a woman. Warning: not to be tried at home.” — Colin Liddell, author of Interviews and Obituaries
“[Andy Nowicki] is developing something of a habit of chronicling crazed men who are always on the verge of doing something utterly appalling.” — Derek Turner, Modern Age
Excerpts
Reviews
- James LaFond
- Derek Turner, Modern Age
- Nikolai Vladivostok, Soviet Men
Under the Nihil is also available in e-book and audiobook formats. To purchase the e-book edition, click here. To purchase the audiobook edition, click here.