The Nobody Code - by Miciah Bay Gault (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A spellbinding novel steeped in New England folklore following a woman who leaves her marriage to uncover who's punishing her for the crimes of her adolescence--for fans of Liz Moore's The God of the Woods and Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You.

"Spellbinding." --Maria Hummel, author of Still Lives and Goldenseal

"Audacious and dazzling." ―Jedediah Berry, author of The Naming Song

One fateful night in the 1990s, Dinah, a small-town Vermont teen, sneaks out on a mission to jump on the neighbor's forbidden trampoline. There she comes upon a handsome, seductive boy named Rex, who leads a group of underground vigilante teenagers who call themselves "Nobody." Dinah falls under Rex's sway and joins the group. She'll do anything to impress him, even when it's dangerous. After an incident orchestrated by Rex results in steep repercussions for herself and others, Dinah leaves the town and her adolescent years behind.

Now, twenty years later, Rex has long vanished. Dinah is married with a baby and a job at the local zoo. But she is not at peace, and it seems as if someone from the past won't let her go quietly. When mysterious clues start appearing, animals at the zoo go missing, and an old conspirator barely survives a suspicious fire, Dinah's paranoia gets the best of her, and she takes the baby and drives back to her hometown to investigate. Although Dinah reunites with old friends, the forces out to get her make it painfully clear: Dinah must repent and face her enemies alone.

"The Nobody Code is that rare feast: a novel that astonishes on every page, twists and turns with wildness, beauty, and delight, and makes you, ultimately, question the stories you've been told about your life. A mystery that is also about adolescence, fairy tales, friendship, and love; I read this book with wonder and pleasure and finished it in tears--in awe of this strange, sublime, and haunting masterpiece." ―Robin MacArthur, author of Half Wild

Review Quotes

"From the start, Miciah Bay Gault's The Nobody Code delivers on the promise of its strange and wild mystery, set in a small Vermont town whose seemingly mundane reality grows more openly unruly and untamed with every page turn. There's so much moving nostalgia and regret and honest, naked want here, all of it propelling a tale about the deep pleasures of breaking free of the rules constraining us, as well as the unexpected consequences of subjecting ourselves and others to new rules of our own devising. This is a brave, bold novel, one you won't soon forget."--Matt Bell, author of Appleseed

"Miciah Bay Gault's sophomore novel is so much greater than the sum of its parts--and its parts are a feast. From drowsy bears and mysteriously missing wolves, from a complicated upending of Me Too questions to an old love that keeps coming back and back and back, this is a novel that takes the strange and makes it joyously stranger."--Daniel Torday, author of The 12th Commandment

"The Nobody Code is a book that questions everything--what if all the fairy tales were true and the rules were meant to be broken? Miciah Bay Gault has such a talent for writing this small Vermont town, I hardly noticed when the real began to feel unreal, the steady ground disappearing beneath my feet. But by then the mystery had its hooks in me, and I was happy to trust the free-fall. One of the strangest and most imaginative books you'll read this year. You'll want to start it again as soon as you finish."--Emily Everett, author of the Reese's Book Club Pick All That Life Can Afford

"Nostalgia is a thing with teeth in Miciah Bay Gault's delirious masterpiece of teenage hunger, adult disillusionment, and the beastly bite marks left behind. This is a world of talking cats, of vanishing kids and mysterious fires and holy trampolines and secret quarries--that is, the same world as ours, if we know where to look. Living in Dinah's head is like riding a carousel, but all the animals are shaped like everyone you've ever loved. Abundant, blindingly clever, and fierce with hope, The Nobody Code devilishly and deliciously breaks all the rules. I fucking loved this book."--GennaRose Nethercott, author of Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart

"The Nobody Code is that rare feast: a novel that astonishes on every page, twists and turns with wildness, beauty, and delight, and makes you, ultimately, question the stories you've been told about your life. A mystery that is also about adolescence, fairy tales, friendship, and love; I read this book with wonder and pleasure and finished it in tears--in awe of this strange, sublime, and haunting masterpiece."--Robin MacArthur, author of Half Wild

"With its secret missions and stunning strangeness, The Nobody Code shines a crackling light on vital questions of love, family, memory, and belonging. This book is audacious and dazzling."--Jedediah Berry, author of The Naming Song

"Miciah Bay Gault's spellbinding The Nobody Code blends the prickling excitement of an S. E. Hinton novel with a brilliant commentary on being beautifully, tragically young. Dinah is an unforgettable character, an intrepid, rule-breaking girl who becomes a woman shadowed by secrets that return to her childhood hometown and the deep, mysterious woods around it. Follow her with caution. You will emerge changed."--Maria Hummel, author of Still Lives and Goldenseal

About the Author

Miciah Bay Gault has an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse. She teaches in the MFA program at VCFA and directs the Vermont Book Award. Miciah's work has appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, LitHub, Electric Literature, the Harvard Review, and many others. She's been a fellow at Bread Loaf, a Visiting Writer at the Vermont Studio Center, and the recipient of a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant.