NICHOLAS BREDIE
NOT CONSTANTINOPLE
Coming home from dinner, two young American expatriates, Fred and Virginia, find their apartment inhabited by a family that claims to be its rightful owners. They are descendants of a Greek family driven away by the pogroms of the nineteen-fifties. The Greeks intend to ‘flip’ the apartment, and others like it, in the newly gentrifying downtown, and they won’t leave until they've succeeded.
In fighting to keep their home, Fred and Virginia become entangled with a variety of characters: an Istanbuli biker gang, Poison’s Greatest Hits; foreign developers looking to “Turn Turk;” terrorists seeking fame through political comics. Their journey through this place where past and present collide in a strange and violent fashion will test their relationship and their ideas of themselves.
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Forthcoming from Dzanc Books, 2017
NOT CONSTANTINOPLE
Coming home from dinner, two young American expatriates, Fred and Virginia, find their apartment inhabited by a family that claims to be its rightful owners. They are descendants of a Greek family driven away by the pogroms of the nineteen-fifties. The Greeks intend to ‘flip’ the apartment, and others like it, in the newly gentrifying downtown, and they won’t leave until they've succeeded.
In fighting to keep their home, Fred and Virginia become entangled with a variety of characters: an Istanbuli biker gang, Poison’s Greatest Hits; foreign developers looking to “Turn Turk;” terrorists seeking fame through political comics. Their journey through this place where past and present collide in a strange and violent fashion will test their relationship and their ideas of themselves.
​
Forthcoming from Dzanc Books, 2017
NOT CONSTANTINOPLE
Coming home from dinner, two young American expatriates, Fred and Virginia, find their apartment inhabited by a family that claims to be its rightful owners. They are descendants of a Greek family driven away by the pogroms of the nineteen-fifties. The Greeks intend to ‘flip’ the apartment, and others like it, in the newly gentrifying downtown, and they won’t leave until they've succeeded.
In fighting to keep their home, Fred and Virginia become entangled in the city: an Istanbuli biker gang, Poison’s Greatest Hits; foreign developers looking to “Turn Turk;” terrorists seeking fame through political comics. Their journey through this place where past and present collide in a strange and violent fashion will test their relationship and their ideas of themselves.
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Read the first chapter, up at Literary Hub.
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Named one of the best books of 2017 by The Morning News
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"In spare, understated prose, our author captures the privileged aimlessness and corrupted romanticism of the contemporary white American expatriate. Bredie is a sly and unsparing writer for the post-Hemingway set, revealing a world of travel that is stripped of illusions and glamour." - Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sympathizer
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"Utterly charming. Nick Bredie's debut novel is by turns whimsical and deeply affecting, managing to illuminate both the displaced couple at the heart of it and the city that maddens and liberates them." - T.C. Boyle, author of The Harder They Come and The Terranauts
"Nicholas Bredie has crafted an expatriate story for our time, a modern day reimagining of the listlessness that for centuries has driven so many westerners to the east. This novel is a paean to the city at its heart and the couple whose adventures run through its pages." -Elliot Ackerman, author of Dark at the Crossing
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“Incredibly smart and funny in that way that pleasingly sneaks up on a person, in line after line after line. Bredie’s novel is an enormously confident and layered debut.” -Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
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"The ugly American gets a slacker reboot in this sometimes funny, sometimes mercilessly sharp novel. Vividly written, Not Constantinople is all about the ways it's lead character's supposed self-awareness doesn't keep him from unraveling. It tells us much about our privileged insularity, our orientalism, our posed romanticism, and our drive for destruction." -Brian Evenson, author of A Collapse of Horses and The Wavering Knife
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"Not Constantinople is a tender and very funny evocation of a young couple finding their way -- and themselves -- in a strange city. It's a wise book: wise about the labyrinthine cultures and histories of Istanbul; and about the no less ancient mysteries of the heart." - Paul LaFarge, author of The Night Ocean and Luminous Airplanes
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Buy: Dzanc; Indiebound; Amazon
Cows
"At first the burden of a dead cow is overwhelming. But very quickly one can add another, and another and another. We became, in our time, like little thirsty cows. I know quite well that the rain is there, that it is here in our hearts, our hearts which let nothing leak out.
The cows loved the rain. They might have easily loved other things, as we have: mind, method, power. But in the end they loved the water from the sky"
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So begins Cows, a verse novella written by Frédéric Boyer, 'discovered' by Brian Evenson, and translated by Joanna Howard and myself. An eschatology of man's power-hunger, and cow-hunger, the book drew praise from Cole Swenson and Heather Christle.
I'm an assistant professor at Utah Valley University. I live with Nora Lange, our daughter and our dog.