Waiting for the Electricity

March 10, 2014
This inventive debut from Nichol, who has taught English in the Republic of Georgia, where the book is set, provides a satirical but good-natured look at the clash between American and Georgian attitudes. Slims Achmed Makashvili, a self-effacing attorney working in the Georgian Maritime Ministry of Law, lives in Batumi, a small town on the Black Sea. Bemoaning the deplorable condition of post-Soviet Georgia, where corruption is rife and electricity scarce, Slims enters a business-proposal-writing contest sponsored by Hillary Clinton to teach citizens of former U.S.S.R. satellite states about free-market capitalism. He submits his application with help from his sister, Juliet, who teaches English at a local university, and is surprised to be informed afterward by the American embassy that he has won entry to a six-week internship in San Francisco, which involves attending an economic conference. While staying with his American host, small business owner Merrick, Slims is impressed by the law and order he observes, as well as by the abundance of electricity. He comes up with a dubious business plan for importing Georgian sheep to the U.S. before embarking on a madcap road trip that brings his stay to an ignominious end. Tongue-in-cheek humor and Slims’s deadpan narration of his improbable tale add considerable appeal to this promising first novel. Agent: Irene Skolnick, Skolnick Literary.

Starred review from June 1, 2014
A wise, funny debut novel that finds endless entertainment in cultural differences and clashing personality types. Part Candide, part Zorba, Slims Achmed Makashvili is a maritime lawyer in the mountainous nation of Georgia, where, as Nichol's picaresque yarn opens, it is the last day of summer, when "everyone was trying to blacken their bodies before the weather changed." Makashvili, though, has other things than beachgoing and the impending winter on his mind. Tired of living in a country where electrical power can't be taken for granted, but still proud of living in a town that "looks like chipped paint," he's gotten wind of a U.S. State Department grant program designed to teach third-world types about the virtues of capitalism. He sends off a carefully written letter to Hillary Clinton, exulting, "As You can see, Batumi offers You and Your country great business opportunity!" In return, he wins a slot in an internship program in San Francisco, where he puts his avid mind to work concocting wild schemes to enliven his country's livestock industry; writing to excuse himself from work one day, for instance, he avers that he's never sick at home because "we always drink the milk of the sheep," though, in an aside to readers, he allows that it was really the milk of the goat: "But, as I learned, it is okay to lie in a commercial." Makashvili is well-meaning and honest, but he can't help but get into Borat-like mischief, and his stay in the golden land of America-which, he has discerned, isn't quite so golden after all-doesn't end well. Nichol writes with sharp, knowing exactitude of both Georgia (where she once taught English) and her native Bay Area, and though Makashvili is a figure of jape and jest, he's by no means a caricature.Indeed, he's one of the most fully realized characters in recent memory, and readers will take much pleasure in going along on his adventures-and misadventures.

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June 1, 2014
Set primarily in post-Soviet Georgia, Nichol's clever debut is rich in cultural commentary as it follows one man's adventures journeying away from his homeland and back again. Slims Achmed Makashvili lives in the small town of Batumi, and is a lawyer at the Maritime Ministry of Law, but he hasn't received a salary in months. Even more despairing to Slims is the fact that corruption is widespread and his town hasn't had regular electricity for more than a decade. Tired of the lack of order and his family and friends' general indifference toward it, Slims enters a small-business-proposal contest sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton. When he is selected as a winner, which entitles him to a six-week internship in America, Slims happily leaves Batumi behind for San Francisco. Yet as Slims settles in with his bohemian host and is exposed to a society and culture completely unlike his own, it doesn't take long for his scrupulous intentions to shift. Nichol's well-drawn characters and satirical flourishes make Slims' journey and interactions both enjoyable and thoughtful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)