The Nobody Code - by Miciah Bay Gault (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

One fateful night in the 1990s, Dinah, a small-town Vermont teen, sneaks out on a mission to jump on the neighbor's forbidden trampoline. There she comes upon a handsome, seductive boy named Rex, who leads a group of underground vigilante teenagers who call themselves "Nobody." Dinah falls under Rex's sway and joins the group. She'll do anything to impress him, even when it's dangerous. After an incident orchestrated by Rex results in steep repercussions for herself and others, Dinah leaves the town and her adolescent years behind.
Now, twenty years later, Rex has long vanished. Dinah is married with a baby and a job at the local zoo. But she is not at peace, and it seems as if someone from the past won't let her go quietly. When mysterious clues start appearing, animals at the zoo go missing, and an old conspirator barely survives a suspicious fire, Dinah's paranoia gets the best of her, and she takes the baby and drives back to her hometown to investigate. Although Dinah reunites with old friends, the forces out to get her make it painfully clear: Dinah must repent and face her enemies alone.

Review Quotes

"The Nobody Code is that rare feast: a novel that astonishes on every page, twists and turns with wildness, beauty, and delight, and makes you, ultimately, question the stories you've been told about your life. A mystery that is also about adolescence, fairy tales, friendship, and love; I read this book with wonder and pleasure and finished it in tears--in awe of this strange, sublime, and haunting masterpiece."--Robin Marie MacArthur, author of Half Wild

"Miciah Bay Gault's sophomore novel is so much greater than the sum of its parts--and its parts are a feast. From drowsy bears and mysteriously missing wolves, from a complicated upending of Me Too questions to an old love that keeps coming back and back and back, this is a novel that takes the strange and makes it joyously stranger."--Daniel Torday, author of The Twelfth Commandment

"Miciah Bay Gault's spellbinding The Nobody Code blends the prickling excitement of an S. E. Hinton novel with a brilliant commentary on being beautifully, tragically young. Dinah is an unforgettable character, an intrepid, rule-breaking girl who becomes a woman shadowed by secrets that return to her childhood hometown and the deep, mysterious woods around it. Follow her with caution. You will emerge changed."--Maria Hummel, author of Still Lives and Goldenseal

About the Author

Miciah Bay Gault has an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse. She teaches in the MFA program at VCFA and directs the Vermont Book Award. Miciah's work has appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, LitHub, Electric Literature, the Harvard Review, and many others. She's been a fellow at Bread Loaf, a Visiting Writer at the Vermont Studio Center, and the recipient of a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant.