Also by Dana Spiotta
Lightning Field
Eat the Document
First published in Great Britain in 2012
by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Copyright © Dana Spiotta, 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in the Unites States of America in 2011 by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 85786 373 7
eISBN 978 0 85786 375 1
Designed by Carla Jayne Jones
This digital edition first published in 2012 by Canongate Books
For Clem Coleman
The beauty for which I aim needs little to appear—unbelievably little. Anyplace—the most destitute—is good enough for it.
Jean Dubuffet, Landscaped Tables,
Landscapes of the Mind, Stones of Philosophy
I just wanna stay in the garage all night.
“Garageland,” the Clash,
written by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer
CONTENTS
DECEMBER 31, 2003–JANUARY 1, 2004
MY FRAGILE BORDER MOMENTS BREAKING EVENTS
FRAGILE BORDER MOMENT #1 BREAKING EVENT #1
She always said it started, or became apparent to her, when their father brought him a guitar for his tenth birthday. At least that was the family legend, repeated and burnished into a shared over-memory. But she did really think it was true: he changed in one identifiable moment. Up until that point, Nik’s main occupations had been reading Mad magazine and making elaborate ink drawings of dogs and cats behaving like far-out hipsters. He had characters—Mickey the shaggy mutt who smoked weed and rode motorcycles; Linda the sluttish afghan who wore her hair hanging over one eye; and Nik Kat, his little alter ego, a cool cat who played pranks and escaped many close calls. Nik Kat addressed the reader directly and gave little winky comments about not wanting you to turn the page. Denise appeared as Little Kit Kat, the wonder tot. She had a cape and followed all the orders Nik Kat gave her. Nik made a full book out of each episode. He would make three or four copies with carbon paper and then later make more at some expense at the print shop, but each of the covers was created by hand and unique: he drew the images in Magic Marker and then collaged in pieces of colored paper cut from magazines. Denise still had Nik’s zines in a box somewhere. He gave one copy to her and Mom (they had to share), one to his girlfriend of the moment (Nik always had a girlfriend), one was put in a plastic sleeve and filed in his fledgling archives, and one went to their father, who lived in San Francisco.
Nik would take his father’s issue, sign it, and write a limited-edition number on it before taping it into an elaborate package cut from brown paper grocery bags. He would address it to Mr. Richard Kranis. (Always with the word Kronos written next