A Vulture, LitHub, and PureWow Most Anticipated Book of 2020
"As precise as any scientific observation and far more tantalizing." --Vogue
"A sophisticated, surprising take on the campus novel (with a welcome dose of witchery). Knight's writing feels a little wild and charged, as if you're constantly on the edge of discovering something new with her."
--Goop
"Hex is some dark and joyous witchery." --Lauren Groff, author of Florida
"A beautiful, spooky spell." --Jenny Slate, actress and author of Little Weirds
A breathtaking and hypnotic novel about poison, antidotes, and obsessive love
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 Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success, and spiritual force.
Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend, and Joan's 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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
"As precise as any scientific observation and far more tantalizing." --Vogue
"A sophisticated, surprising take on the campus novel (with a welcome dose of witchery). Knight's writing feels a little wild and charged, as if you're constantly on the edge of discovering something new with her."
--Goop
"Hex is some dark and joyous witchery." --Lauren Groff, author of Florida
"A beautiful, spooky spell." --Jenny Slate, actress and author of Little Weirds
A breathtaking and hypnotic novel about poison, antidotes, and obsessive love
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 Nell's heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan's office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan's elegance, success, and spiritual force.
Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend, and Joan's 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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Hex is sexy, unhinged, revelatory, so smart it gives the reader whiplash. It works on you like the poisonous plants that wind through the story line, until you’re as obsessed and intoxicated as the vivid characters that make up this love hexagon gone fascinatingly and beautifully wrong. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book or was so impressed by the wizardry of the language." - Julie Buntin
"Hex offers pleasures on every page. It is wise, funny, suspenseful, and quite moving. Dinerstein Knight takes great care with every word." - Jonathan Safran Foer
"In her brilliant second novel, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight cannily explores both the poisons and the antidotes of love, ambition, mentorship, and yearning, and she does it all in prose so lively that I often found myself laughing with pleasure. Hex is some dark and joyous witchery." - Lauren Groff
"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 who’s ever felt adrift, or felt alone, or loved someone out of reach, or all the above." - Rachel Khong
"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
"Hex is a gem of a book: sharp and exquisite. Dinerstein Knight writes about women’s obsession with devastating wisdom, insight, and humor. It is pure pleasure to be under her spell." - Julia Pierpont
"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 offers pleasures on every page. It is wise, funny, suspenseful, and quite moving. Dinerstein Knight takes great care with every word." - Jonathan Safran Foer
"In her brilliant second novel, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight cannily explores both the poisons and the antidotes of love, ambition, mentorship, and yearning, and she does it all in prose so lively that I often found myself laughing with pleasure. Hex is some dark and joyous witchery." - Lauren Groff
"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 who’s ever felt adrift, or felt alone, or loved someone out of reach, or all the above." - Rachel Khong
"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
"Hex is a gem of a book: sharp and exquisite. Dinerstein Knight writes about women’s obsession with devastating wisdom, insight, and humor. It is pure pleasure to be under her spell." - Julia Pierpont
"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
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for Rebecca Dinerstein Knight's Hex