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Nicotine (novel)Nicotine is a satirical 2016 novel by US novelist Nell Zink. It follows the character of Penny as she deals with both the death of her father and squatters in one of his properties. The book was well received by critics.

Plot
Over some weeks, Penny watches her father (a prominent New Age guru) slowly die. After the funeral, which is attended by many of his followers, her mother Amalia and brother Matt push Penny to assess the condition of a house in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been abandoned since her grandparents died there in a fire. She discovers that it has been squatted in the meantime and is named Nicotine because the activists who live there all smoke and promote smoking. Instead of evicting the squatters, she spends time getting to know them better and falls in love with two of them (Jazz and Rob). Her brother Matt then visits the house since he is eager to sell it, only to fall in love with Jazz as well.

Penny likes the anarchist subculture she finds herself in and moves into another housing co-operative called Tranquility. After an environmental protest which goes wrong and with tensions rising due to the love quadrangle, there are quarrels at the Nicotine house which culminate in Matt attacking Rob, and Jazz almost shooting Matt. The squatters flee in different directions and Matt takes possession. He decides to convert the house into an anarchist community centre named after his father, hoping that it will lure Jazz back to him. She has escaped with Rob and Sorry in a van, reaching the West Coast. When Matt's direction of the centre hits problems, he abandons New Jersey to pursue Jazz in Hawaii, allowing the reunited couple of Penny and Rob to squat the freshly constructed penthouse suite.

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