Steve Erickson

[kyle seifried]

William Karlin wrote:

>  I forgot to mention this yesterday, but one of the links in this piece
> goes to an L.A. Weekly article from 1986 about Steve Erickson's _rubicon
> beach_ (which I hadn't heard of -- any good?  It sounds interesting.)
> The article mentions that Erickson's two books both carry "a heady quote
> from Thomas Pynchon hailing Erickson's 'rare and luminous gift.'"
>
>   The article is fairly good...here's the URL:
>
>    http://www.snowcrect.net/turn/erickson/articles/phant.html
>

    Steve Erickson is one of the best young writers around today. I just
discovered him in January, but wish I could have done so earlier. His fiction
reads, to paraphrase Larry McCaffery, as PKD alternative-worlds fused with the
magic realism of Garcia Marquez, hyped with Faulkner's sense of time. His best
novel is Arc D'X . Though it came out in 1994, I got mine for $5 at a
Half-Price Books store. Owl Books has just re-released  his first two novels,
Days Between Stations and Rubicon Beach, along with paperback version of Arc
D'X. The first novel is obviously a first novel, but remains promising and has
moments of brilliance. It is this novel that features the blurb by Pynchon
("Daring, haunting, and sensual. Steve Erickson has that rare and luminous
gift for reporting back from the nocturnal side of reality.") Rubicon Beach is
a brilliant tale of three parallel lives connected by respective nightmares,
and I'd recommend it for those that want to see what Erickson is like.
    Erickson then wrote two more books before what I consider to be his best
work to date -- Arc D'X. The hardcover edition of this novel features this
blurb from our man: "Mind-warping in its vision, absolute in its integrity,
Arc D'X is classic Erickson -- as daring, crazy, and passionate as any
American writing since the Declaration of Independence." I don't think I'll
even try to top that recommendation, just note that the back flap also
contains a highly praising, pre-publication blurb by William Gibson.
    Erickson had another brilliant novel, just below the beauty of Arc D'X, in
my opinion, come out in 96, called Amnesiascope. And, following his coverage
of the 1996 political campaign, he wrote a memoir/fiction called American
Nomad. Interested fellows should check Erickson out.

Returning to the lonely life of the lurker,
    Kyle Seifried
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