This big book could carry you through the summer

Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke with Susan Kehoe, the manager at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, Del."The Nix" is a big book. It clocks in at more than 600 pages.And it sat on Susan Kehoe's book stack for almost a year. She just couldn't find the right moment to dive into Nathan Hill's sprawling novel. But when she finally did this spring, she was hooked.It's the story of an English professor, trapped in the malaise of a third-rate university. One day, he gets a call about his mother — a woman he hasn't seen since he was a child. She's been arrested, he learns, for protesting an infamous political figure, and now she needs a character witness.That's just where the story kicks off, but it goes to strange and unexpected places, bouncing among the son's story, the mother's story and even the story of an avid video gamer that Hill winds masterfully through the book. Kehoe is not the only one to fall for this book — critics compared Hill to John Irving and Charles Dickens. It might be cliche to call something a Great American novel, Kehoe said, but "The Nix" is one. More: An interview with Nathan Hill, author of "The Nix" NixNix