Big Nobody

A 40-something woman looks back on her awkward teen years in 1970s London in this bold, hilarious, and surprisingly moving debut. Kadis, a music industry veteran, peppers the narrative with references to the era’s glam stars David Bowie and Marc Bolan, who capture the imagination of narrator Constance Costa and offer solace after she loses her British mother and brothers in a car accident. Constance blames her emotionally and physically abusive Greek father, whom she calls “The Fat Murderer,” for the deaths, and reels from his “jealousy and psychotic need for control.” While fearing she might be her school’s “freak,” she plots ways to kill her father, and takes in conflicting advice from the imaginary voices of Bowie and Bolan. “If I had cared about what other people thought, I’d never have made ‘The Laughing Gnome,’ ” Bowie confides, while Bolan presses her to go to the school disco (“you gotta funk or be square”). Meanwhile, she regularly attends her community’s Greek Night, or, as Constance calls it, “Freak Night,” with the other Greek families in the area. After kissing a boy there, she wonders if things might turn around for her. Kadis successfully balances the dark material with Constance’s teen ebullience and whimsy. In this joyful novel, being a “freak” means wielding a double-edged sword. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Mar.)