Two Books by Craig Nova, English Department

Noted novelist and UNCG faculty member Craig Nova (English) is attracting favorable notice for two recent publications.

Earlier this year, Nova re-issued an expanded version of his memoir Brook Trout and the Writing Life, a book that looks at writing, marriage, fatherhood, and fishing (including fishing with the FBI!). As Kirkus Reviews describes, "One of Nova's great strengths as a novelist is his unerring eye for natural detail....The book is unflinchingly candid about both the writing process and the hard work of marriage, each of which is seen intertwined with his fishing and his love of nature."





In 2010, Nova published The Informer, a political crime novel. John Irving praised the book, noting,

"There are three elements in a Craig Nova novel that you can rely on. First, there is the indelible atmosphere--in the case of The Informer, this is Berlin in the 1930s, and the atmosphere is both brutal and mystifying, because everyone seems capable of betraying anyone. The second element is that there are characters who know they're in trouble, but they have underestimated how much trouble they're in, and they are unsure in regard to which of the other characters they should fear most. The third and most important element is that these characters, and their entwined stories, are on a meticulously plotted collision course. . . . This is a dark but fantastic novel."