Hex

(Paperback)

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'A really beautiful book about obsession, longing and science' RAVEN LEILANI Wise, funny, suspenseful JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER 'Sardonic and strange ... With its dark humour and loopy lyricism, it bewitches DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Reads like a botanists cross-breeding of The Secret History and Department of Speculation' EMMA STRAUB Nell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in Biological Science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nells heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joans office despite herself, mesmerized by Joans elegance, success, and spiritual force. Surrounded by Nells ex, her best friend, her best friends boyfriend, and Joans buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges, and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak. Meanwhile, Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study, and she begins to keep a series of notebooks, all dedicated to Joan. She logs her research and how she spends her days, but the notebooks ultimately become a painstaking map of love. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity.

Reviews

Sardonic and strange ... With its dark humour and loopy lyricism, it bewitches * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *
A really beautiful book about obsession, longing and science Its really beautiful and it does something I love, and can never say no to in books, which is a really complex relationship between two women its just gorgeous, really gorgeous on a sentence level Its just extremely cool thats the book that Im reading and really love -- RAVEN LEILANI
Cannily explores both the poisons and the antidotes of love, ambition, mentorship, and yearning, in prose so lively that I often found myself laughing with pleasure. Hex is some dark and joyous witchery -- LAUREN GROFF
Nell is an expelled Ph.D. candidate in biological science who is trying to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Shes mesmerized by her mentor, Joan, and the womans elegance and success. Surrounded by Nells ex, her best friend, her best friends boyfriend and Joans husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the centre of a web of illicit relationships, grudges and obsessions * PUREWOW, 44 Books We Cant Wait to Read in 2020 *
Strange and delightful How could a reader - or a botany professor - not be charmed * NPR.org *
Academics tie themselves up into a pretzel of betrayal and desire in Rebecca Dinerstein Knights propulsive second book, which reads a tiny bit like AS Byatt after dark This is a bold and highly charged book that makes entertainment seem like not such a bad word * LITHUB, Most Anticipated Books of 2020 *
Hex is the sort of novel that almost has its own smell humid and loamy, like a body after a morning spent bent over a garden patch. Its about Nell Barber, a recently expelled Ph.D. student secretly running her own experiments on poisonous botanicals in her apartment and vigorously lusting after her buttoned-up adviser and mentor. Sex practically pulses out of Nell as she fails her way into adulthood in this botanically entwined work of early-adult dissatisfaction * VULTURE, 32 Books We Cant Wait to Read in 2020 *
Swift-moving, sardonic Dinerstein Knight paints a withering portrait of this web of toxic romances, and of the excesses of academia, while illustrating how both the heart and the mind can be broken and reshaped by changing circumstances * NEW YORKER *
As precise as any scientific observation and far more tantalizing * VOGUE *
Hex reads like a botanist's cross-breeding of The Secret History and Department of Speculation, full of brilliant and bodily obsession. Rebecca Dinerstein Knight is both a scientist and a magician, and she conjures this beautiful spell of a novel with total control -- EMMA STRAUB
Hex is a book for those who feel adrift and solitary, for those who feel overwhelmed by themselves. Ultimately, its a story about harnessing what is out of control - and learning that perhaps the only way to control a poisonous thing is to first embrace it * CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS *
A book that examines our natural and absolutely astounding reactions to each other. The language of this novel is so finely tailored, so elegant yet organic, so absorbing that it takes the reader a moment to realize that this is not just a deliciously engaging tale of what it is like to be social and sexual, but that this writing is an actual incantation in itself. It is a beautiful, spooky spell that divides and processes our innate potential for poison or pleasure -- JENNY SLATE
Hex is sexy, unhinged, revelatory, so smart it gives the reader whiplash. It works on you like the poisonous plants that wind through the storyline, until youre as obsessed and intoxicated as the vivid characters that make up this love hexagon gone fascinatingly and beautifully wrong. I cant remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book or was so impressed by the wizardry of the language -- JULIE BUNTIN, author of Marlena
Hex is a gem of a book: sharp and exquisite. Dinerstein Knight writes about womens obsession with devastating wisdom, insight, and humor. It is pure pleasure to be under her spell -- JULIA PIERPONT, author of Among the Ten Thousand Things
Hex is neon-bright and guided by a fierce, scintillating interest in the innermost chambers of the human heart, where melancholic and bright humors mingle together. In every line you hear the voice of a writer who knows how to lead you expertly into the place where the story is most alive: spooky, shifty, darkly funny, and delectable in every way -- ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN
Offbeat yet entirely precise; original and universal. Hex is a nut with sweet meat and a poison shell, at once disarming and quietly devastating. This is a book for anyone whos ever felt adrift, or felt alone, or loved someone out of reach, or all the above -- RACHEL KHONG
Nells intensity and the hypnotic, second-person prose convincingly render the protagonists bewitched, self-destructive state. Readers who liked I Love Dick and want something more lurid will appreciate this * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY *
A joyfully deranged pleasure * KIRKUS *
A spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity * FANTASTIC FICTION *

Author Bio

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight is the author of the novel and screenplay The Sunlit Night, and a bilingual English-Norwegian collection of poems, Lofoten. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The New Yorker online, among others. She is a graduate of Yale and the NYU MFA program, and has received a Wallant Award for Jewish Literature. Born and raised in New York City, she lives in New Hampshire.