Baby Got Books

Zeroville

I didn’t know anything about author Steve Ericson or his new book Zeroville yesterday morning. Nothing. However, over the course of the day, I came across reviews/discussion of the book in four separate places. The guy and his book were suddenly everywhere. Take a peek:

John Fox says: There’s not any novel like it, because no one writes like he does. In fact, the highest praise I can offer to Erickson is that in every book it seems like he’s broken the emergency-stop of his imagination and let a meltdown occur, and we all get to the watch the highly dangerous but highly fascinating fallout.
Pinky’s Paperhaus enthuses: “…if Steve Erickson writes it, I’ll read it. Very, very happily.”
…which lead to a profile of the author in the LA Times…
then I opened the new issue of The Believer to find a review that opens: Since his 1985 debut, Days Between Stations, Steve Erickson has published extraordinary novel after extraordinary novel, each one exploring a different terrain of our national psyche. If there’s a surrealist quality to his fiction, it’s likely because Erickson recognizes as well as any artist working today the surrealist quality of our real world.

So if I’m reading correctly, there is a major talent out there that I had not heard of until yesterday, and he has a well received new novel out that I should read more of less immediately. This is exactly why I decided to get in on this crazy lit blog thing.

Tags: Steve Ericson, Zeroville

Books, To Checkout | Tim | November 7, 2007 12:11 pm

4 Comments

By Herman Glimscher, November 7, 2007 @ 1:12 pm

From your basement in Indiana.
By Tim, November 7, 2007 @ 1:46 pm

It used to take word of literary greatness years if not decades to trickle down to the basement. Now with the series of tubes that we call the internet, it may only take years (or possibly) decades for word of literary greatness to filter down to me.
By Benjamin Chambers, November 7, 2007 @ 10:51 pm

Steve Erickson’s been on the literary radar for a while now – but no matter. We all have holes like that. Certainly, in terms of should-have-read vs. read.

For what it’s worth, though, I’ve had two separate Steve Erickson moments – once, when I attempted *Days Between Stations,* which I wanted to like so much that I read *way* past the point where I should’ve stopped, hoping the book would become more interesting; later, I tried again with one of his later novels, when an enthusiastic review convinced me that my earlier attempt to scale his oeuvre had been badly timed, and I could now approach him in a different and more receptive frame of mind. But my second attempt didn’t make a fan of me either, though I confess the details of my unhappiness are lost in the mists of etc.

May your Erickson experience be all you hope.
By thejamminjabber, November 11, 2007 @ 2:09 pm

Zeroville is fantastic. One of Erickson’s best.

I recently conducted an in depth interview with Erickson for ChuckPalahniuk.net Check it out:

http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/features/interviews/steveerickson/