You Deserve Nothing
A novel
Set in Paris, at an international high school catering to the sons and daughters of wealthy, influential families, You Deserve Nothing is a gripping story of power, idealism, and morality. In Maksik’s stylish prose, Paris is sensual, dazzling and dangerously seductive. It serves as a fitting backdrop for a dramatic tale about the tension between desire and action, and about the complex relationship that exists between our public and private selves.
Read a letter about the novel from editor, Alice Sebold Read an Interview with World Literature Today
Praise
“A novel rivetingly plotted and beautifully written. . . [Maksik] writes about the moral ambiguity of Will’s circumstances with dazzling clarity and impressive philosophical rigor.”
“Maksik, in his account of adolescent yearning and grown-up fallibility, does something like what Hemingway did in his non-debut memoir, “A Moveable Feast” – he vividly evokes a destination for generations of foreign seekers.”
“While comparisons with Donna Tartt and J D Salinger are apt given the high school setting and philosophical digressions, it’s Ian McEwan who comes most readily to mind. Maksik’s Paris is brilliantly sketched and demythologized. YOU DESERVE NOTHING arrives with a fanfare of acclaim. Alexander Maksik proves himself a worthy recipient of this attention.”
“A suberb debut novel.”
“With writing that is reminiscent of James Salter’s in its sensuality, Francine Prose’s capacious inquiry into difficult moral questions and Martin Amis’s loose-limbed evocation of the perils of youth, Maksik brings us back to that point in all our lives when character is molten, integrity elusive and beauty unbearably thrilling.”
“You Deserve Nothing is a bravura performance by a new voice who has taken the existential squiggle of classroom life and imposed upon it order with a sleight of hand worthy of Sartre.”
“Largely a character study of Will Silver, master teacher at the International School of France in Paris, the novel advances its narrative through multiple perspectives, much as Faulkner does in As I Lay Dying . . . Both intelligent and intellectual, [YOU DESERVE NOTHING] is both a tribute to brilliant teachers and a cautionary tale of their imperfections.”
- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
“You Deserve Nothing is a powerful, absorbing novel and Alexander Maksik is an unusually gifted writer.”
- Tom Perrotta, Author of Little Children, Election, and The Leftovers
“You Deserve Nothing is a provocative, constantly surprising, and original novel written with precision and grace. Maksik is unflinching in his exploration of the sexual awakening of the young, and the moral complexity of adulthood. This is a thrilling debut.”
- Susanna Moore, Author of My Old Sweetheart and In the Cut
“The phrase ‘brilliant debut’ is much overused in our world, but Alexander Maksik’s You Deserve Nothing is truly one of those rarest of creatures, a brilliant debut. Maksik’s superb novel takes on the most fundamental question–how are we supposed to live?–with a freshness and urgency that are nothing short of masterful. This is a gorgeous, troubling, unflinching book, as honest and rich a depiction of life’s contradictions as I’ve encountered in many years.”
- Ben Fountain, Author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevarra
“Alexander Maksik’s You Deserve Nothing is a bracing, challenging, enthralling debut. It is a novel that rings true from first page to last, refusing the false notion of easy choices, inhabiting, rather, the moral maze of lived life. Here is a gifted writer who understands why the artful telling of a difficult story is a brave and important thing to do. Read this book.”
- John Burnham Schwartz, Author of The Commoner, Reservation Road, and Northwest Corner
“The best stories are by nature confrontational, implicitly asking readers to assess their own lives and assumptions, asking readers not only what they might do in difficult situations but more so what they are doing daily and what it all means. By this yardstick, Alexander Maksik’s first novel, You Deserve Nothing, is a thoroughly engaging, passionate, and challenging read that finely walks the line between morality and amorality. In a society, and at a time, when individual identity is so closely tied to collective narcissism, Maksik’s novel asks what are the true sources of self-worth? And how shall we live?”
- Tom Jenks, Editor, Narrative magazine
OTHER EDITIONS
 UK - John Murray Publishers |  Italy – Edizioni E/O |  Spain – Miscelánea |
 Korea – Book 21 |  Russia – AST |  Netherlands - De Bezige Bij |
Germany - Droemer Knaur | France – Payot & Rivages |