Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (the novel)

Cohn, R. and Levithan, D. (2006). Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-93531-2

Why read this book

Inhabit the world of punk rockers from New Jersey on a Saturday night out on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Plot summary

Nick is a high school senior from a working-class New Jersey family and the bass player in a mostly queer punk band. He’s broken-hearted from his recent break-up with his girlfriend Tris. Norah is also a high school senior from New Jersey. She’s the daughter of a record company executive, and she’s still confused about her recently ended long-term relationship with Tal. After playing his set at a club in lower Manhattan one Saturday night, Nick sees Tris in the crowd and impulsively turns to Norah, whom he has never met, and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes while he pretends to show Tris that he’s over her. Nick doesn’t realize then that Norah and Tris go way back, and Norah doesn’t realize that Nick is the guy Tris has been abusing for the last few months. They figure out these things and more in the course of the next 12 hours as they hop to another club, fondle each other wildly in a dressing room, separate, reunite, wander around Midtown till dawn, almost have sex in an ice room in the Marriott in Times Square, and eventually figure out the rest of their lives.

Critical evaluation

The narrative is lively and the introspection is intense as authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan take turns writing chapters from Norah’s and Nick’s perspectives. The compressed time frame and the Manhattan setting echo The Catcher in the Rye, but neither of the more modern protagonists captures the angst and vulnerability of Holden Caulfield. Neither Nick nor Norah skirts the brink of sanity like Holden, and their anxiety over their sexual relationships can’t match the damage Holden suffers from his younger brother’s death.

That said, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist skillfully reveals the psychological dynamics of two engaged, reflective teenagers as they try to figure out if they’re a match. Both exes are on the scene to keep the recent failures front and center, and Tris is allowed to evolve from villainess to a character with her own strengths and motivations. The characters’ sophisticated music sensibilities, which are not limited to the punk scene in which the story plays out, provide opportunities for connections that keep the narrative as sharp as a Saturday night out in lower Manhattan demands. The characters’ social skills and analytical capacities would be impressive even among older, more experienced people, but their idealized experience is a model that will move some young readers to imagine bigger lives for themselves than they might have seen before they read the book.

About the authors

Rachel Cohn was born in 1968, grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., and graduated from Barnard College. Among her other young-adult novels are a trilogy featuring a teen-age girl named Cyd Charisse: Gingerbread (2002), Shrimp (2005), and Cupcake (2007) (Gale, 2009, Rachel Cohn).

David Levithan was born in 1972, grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Brown University. He frequently writes on gay topics, such as his debut young-adult novel, Boy Meets Boy (2003), which is set in a utopian future where sexual preference is not an issue. In 2006 he co-edited a collection of pieces in various formats written by forty GLBTQ youth titled The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities. He also works as an editor for Scholastic Books in New York.

Contemporary Authors Online quotes Levithan on the collaborative writing process of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: “It was Rachel’s idea to write a back-and-forth novel ... and I’m glad she had it. We started with two names and a few facts, and then wrote the novel by exchanging chapters, without talking about it along the way. We really wrote it for each other, and it’s been really amazing that other people have liked it, too. If our storytelling hadn’t clicked, the book would’ve never happened” (Gale, 2009, David Levithan).

After Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Cohn and Levithan collaborated on a second young-adult novel, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (2007).

Genre: Romance

Curriculum ties

Although the novel is good entertainment, I don’t see any historical connections or literary qualities that would make it especially useful in high school classrooms.

Book-talking ideas

• How do you figure out whether someone you just met is worth getting to know better? How do you restrain yourself when trying to get to know someone better so you don’t come off as a stalker?

• Tie the book to the 2008 movie based on the book, although the movie is much less edgy, based on the trailer (Sony Pictures, n.d.).

Reading level/interest age

A review in Publisher’s Weekly suggests the book is appropriate for ages 14 and up (Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist, 2006, p. 65) but the sexual content is such that I wouldn’t promote it to readers under 16. Ten of the 18 or so San Francisco public high school libraries own this book.

Challenge issues

Although both Nick and Norah confidently reject alcohol and other drugs, the sexual descriptions in the novel are more graphic than other young-adult literature I have read.

Response

• Remind the challenger of the library policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

I told a school librarian friend that I have been assigned to the musical genre group for a project in my young adult literature class and she thought this novel might be useful.

References

Gale (2009). David Levithan. Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/servlet/BioRC

Gale (2009). Rachel Cohn. Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/servlet/BioRC

Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist (2006, May 1). Publishers’ Weekly 243(18), 65. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=20674329&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live

Sony Pictures (n.d.). Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/nickandnorah/clips.htm