Christina Nichol's WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICITY Book Tour Kicks Off!

In her debut novel WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICITY, Christina Nichol has created an enigmatic character with a voice unlike any other: Slims Achmed Makashvili. As a young Georgian, Slims strives to straddle cultural norms when he travels to San Francisco. In California, Slims hopes to achieve the fabled American Dream and bring it back home with him. 

 An excerpt from his letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

With a sense of intelligent naiveté, Slims is a singular lens of both post-Soviet Georgian and American life that is a pleasure to peer through.

Nichol is kicking off her book tour tonight, right here in NYC! At the wonderful McNally Jackson bookstore! Don't miss out--check out the event details below, and click here for more information.

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NEW YORK, NY
Wednesday, July 16, 7:00 PM
McNally Jackson
52 Prince Street, New York, NY, 10012
Georgia on My Mind: Reading and Discussion with Susan Choi

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Follow Nichol's tour to Powerhouse Arena on Wednesday, July 23rd for a reading and discussion of WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICITY and see for yourself if Christina Nichol is the next Gary Shteyngart. For more information, head on over the Powerhouse website. 

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BROOKLYN, NY

 Wednesday, July 23, 7:00 PM
powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11201
Reading and discussion with Norman Rush, moderated by n+1 founding editor Marco Roth

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Praise for WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICITY:

“Enter Slims Achmed Makashvili, the narrator of Christina Nichol's Waiting for the Electricity… the most endearing and dryly hilarious of these post-Soviet Candides.”—Wall Street Journal

“In her spot-on satire, debut novelist Nichol skewers the former Soviet Union as well as the American Dream.”—New York Post

"Evokes a great sense of place--and is sure to inspire future travel... a laugh out loud debut novel."—National Geographic 

“Christina Nichol reins in her deliciously wild debut novel by creating unusual and fleshed-out characters who carry the weight of the fraught reality they inhabit. She balances the dry wit of preposterous folk wisdom… with sensitive insight into the political realities of post-Soviet Georgia.”—Shelf Awareness Starred Review

“A wise, funny debut novel that finds endless entertainment in cultural differences and clashing personality types.”—Kirkus Starred Review

“This book reads like a sitcom in top form but with sophisticated global themes that will shake American readers out of our insular worldviews.” —Library Journal 

"Nichol has written a laugh-out-loud picaresque novel about post-Soviet Georgia" 
—Reader's Digest 

"Nichol's well-drawn characters and satirical flourishes make Slims' journey and interactions both enjoyable and thoughtful." —Booklist 

"Nichol's sense of humor--her knack for revealing a character through one outlandish metaphor, her perfect ventriloquizing of Slims' shoddy English--is what makes WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICITY so much fun to read. Drawing us further in with each successive chuckle (and quite a few laugh-out-loud moments), Nichol lays out a nuanced portrait of a country many of us will never visit."—KQED Arts

“This book is a triumphant, sustained, comic performance. I can’t recall a contemporary American novel anywhere near as funny. I got a kind of joy from experiencing Christina Nichol’s transformation of an extreme reality into further documentation of the human comedy. I don’t think I’ve ever before used the word “joy” in quite this way.”—Norman Rush, author of Subtle Bodies