Loafers from Cole Haan in New York, tailored suits from the same city, stifling prison cells, the emptiness of the Sahara, the charm of Arab medinas, the largest drug bust in African history, thousands of people making the word bien reverberate through a Spanish bullring after a flawless revolera by a Dutch matador, and the reunion with a lost son.

 

In Immaculate Perception, Nikko Norte wanders through the upper and underworlds of four continents in search of authenticity and solitude. This autobiographical picaresque novel is by turns humorous and harrowing, rich with sharp observations, self-mockery, painful entanglements, absurd situations, and unexpected turns. Nikko lives in extremes—melancholic often, rebellious always. What begins as a flight from a plaza de toros in Málaga becomes a quest for the truth behind the corrida, while a friend patiently waits to be freed from an African prison.

 

Immaculate Perception is an honest and poetic account of a journey without destination, told by a man who sees challenge in everything and only acknowledges doubt as his guide. From selling ice cream atop Rotterdam’s Euromast to becoming the longest-serving Dutch soldier in Afghanistan, Captain Norte writes without restraints and with a sharp pen about life on the fringes of society—about fear, loss, loyalty, self-actualization, and those rare moments when life comes to a standstill, and everything seems just right.

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