ZEROVILLE by Steve Erickson

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ZEROVILLE By Steve Erickson Zeroville beings in 1969 on Hollywood Boulevard, when a Greyhound bus drops off a film-obsessed ex-seminarian with images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift tattooed on his head. Vikar Jerome steps into the vortex of a cultural transformation: rock ‘n’ roll, sex, drugs, and—far more important to him—the decline of the movie studios and the rise of the independent director. Jerome will become a film editor of astonishing vision. Then through encounters with former starlets, burglars, political guerillas, punk musicians, and veteran filmmakers, he discovers the astonishing secret that lies in every movie ever made. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Erickson employs a very interesting structure, using numbered vignettes increasing and decreasing instead of a more traditional narrative. What is the effect of reading novels with unusual structures? Can you think of other examples of unusually-structured novels that impacted your reading experience? 2. The style of this novel is often surreal or dreamlike. What might this say about the fictional world of film? About the world we live in? 3. Based on characters’ reactions to Vikar’s tattoo, how do you think the general perception of body art has changed over time? What are your thoughts on piercings and tattoos? 4. How did you interpret Vikar’s arrest and interrogation? What, if anything, does it foreshadow? 5. Nomenclature in this novel is quite unusual. What meaning did you attach to characters’ names? Consider Ike “Vikar” Jerome, Viking Man, Soledad Palladin, Zazi, and others. 6. How does Vikar’s past influence his personality and actions? Did you see a change in his character throughout the novel? Discuss. 7. Discuss the connections between Zeroville and older literature and stories, specifically the legend of Perceval and Abraham’s biblical sacrifice of his son Isaac. How does Vikar’s life mirror these stories? 8. Film is very clearly a shaping force of Vikar’s life. What mode of art do you find the most influential or inspiring? The least influential or inspiring? Discuss. 9. Section 227 reads, “Vikar doesn’t know it, but everything now has been reset to zero” (179). How did you interpret this moment? What is the importance of this occurring after his return to Los Angeles and his violent visions of Soledad? 10. It’s possible to say that among other themes, Zeroville examines the supernatural power of films over people and how celebrities and films become like gods. Do you agree with this idea or disagree? What moments in the text support this assumption or contradict it? ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steve Erickson is the author of several novels, including Tours of the Black Clock, Rubicon Beach, The Sea Came in at Midnight, Our Ecstatic Days, and Arc d’X. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. He is the film critic for Los Angeles magazine and editor of the literary journal Black Clock, which is published by CalArts where he teaches writing. He lives with his family in Topanga Canoyn. This reading group guide is available for free download at http://www.europaeditions.com/readinggroups.php .

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In BLACK CLOCK, Alaska Quarterly Review, the Rattling Wall and Trop, and She Is Co-Organizer of the Griffith Park Storytelling Series
BLACK CLOCK no. 20 SPRING/SUMMER 2015 2 EDITOR Steve Erickson SENIOR EDITOR Bruce Bauman MANAGING EDITOR Orli Low ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Joe Milazzo PRODUCTION EDITOR Anne-Marie Kinney POETRY EDITOR Arielle Greenberg SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Emma Kemp ASSOCIATE EDITORS Lauren Artiles • Anna Cruze • Regine Darius • Mychal Schillaci • T.M. Semrad EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Quinn Gancedo • Jonathan Goodnick • Lauren Schmidt Jasmine Stein • Daniel Warren • Jacqueline Young COMMUNICATIONS EDITOR Chrysanthe Tan SUBMISSIONS COORDINATOR Adriana Widdoes ROVING GENIUSES AND EDITORS-AT-LARGE Anthony Miller • Dwayne Moser • David L. Ulin ART DIRECTOR Ophelia Chong COVER PHOTO Tom Martinelli AD DIRECTOR Patrick Benjamin GUIDING LIGHT AND VISIONARY Gail Swanlund FOUNDING FATHER Jon Wagner Black Clock © 2015 California Institute of the Arts Black Clock: ISBN: 978-0-9836625-8-7 Black Clock is published semi-annually under cover of night by the MFA Creative Writing Program at the California Institute of the Arts, 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia CA 91355 THANK YOU TO THE ROSENTHAL FAMILY FOUNDATION FOR ITS GENEROUS SUPPORT Issues can be purchased at blackclock.org Editorial email: [email protected] Distributed through Ingram, Ingram International, Bertrams, Gardners and Trust Media. Printed by Lightning Source 3 Norman Dubie The Doorbell as Fiction Howard Hampton Field Trips to Mars (Psychedelic Flashbacks, With Scones and Jam) Jon Savage The Third Eye Jerry Burgan with Alan Rifkin Wounds to Bind Kyra Simone Photo Album Ann Powers The Sound of Free Love Claire
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‘Post-Los Angeles’: The Conceptual City in Steve Erickson’s Amnesiascope Liam Randles antae, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jun., 2018), 138-153 Proposed Creative Commons Copyright Notices Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. b. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). antae (ISSN 2523-2126) is an international refereed postgraduate journal aimed at exploring current issues and debates within English Studies, with a particular interest in literature, criticism and their various contemporary interfaces. Set up in 2013 by postgraduate students in the Department of English at the University of Malta, it welcomes submissions situated across the interdisciplinary spaces provided by diverse forms and expressions within narrative, poetry, theatre, literary theory, cultural criticism, media studies, digital cultures, philosophy and language studies. Creative writing and book reviews are also encouraged submissions. 138 ‘Post-Los Angeles’: The Conceptual City in Steve Erickson’s Amnesiascope Liam Randles University of Liverpool Erickson’s Conceptual Settings A striking hallmark of Steve Erickson’s fiction—that is, the author’s conceptualisation of setting in order to highlight an environment’s transformative qualities—can be traced from a dual position of personal experience and literary influence.
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Anthology: The Blurbs of Thomas Pynchon Compiled by Patrick Lane from Post Road 14 Selected by Wesley Stace, author of by George and Misfortune. Blurbs are almost always besides the point. But I agree with the Neal Pollack. Post Road "feels like it is put out by actual people". I agree with Barry Gifford that it is "a jewel in a bucket of stones". In fact, I'd gladly have nominated the whole of Post Road 14. What other magazine would print Mary Gaitskill's appreciation of Barrie's Peter Pan, next to a reprint of Wilkie Collins' 1863 A Petition to Novel-Writers, a questionnaire answered by George Saunders, a recommendation of the work of William Boyd, and a reproduction of Anais Nin's marriage certificate? And I haven't even scratched the surface - of one issue. Post Road manages to be a fan mail to good writing, and full of good writing itself. It is nostalgia for then and passion for now all rolled into one attractive package. It's unafraid to give airtime to private passions. It lets me opine enthusiastically about the abnormal romances of J. Meade Falkner: it was by no means certain that anyone would ever ask. It's the right size. It collects all Pynchon's blurbs - his most consistent public statements in the nearly 50 year arc of his writing career - so I don't have to. Post Road loves the world of letters. And I love Post Road. – WS. 1 Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland, Mason & Dixon and, most recently, Against the Day.
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Title an Ecology of Representations : Zak Smith and Thomas Pynchon
Title An ecology of representations : Zak Smith and Thomas Pynchon Sub Title 表象のエコロジー : ザク・スミスとトマス・ピンチョン Author 波戸岡, 景太(Hatooka, Keita) Publisher 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会 Publication 2008 year Jtitle 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要. 英語英米文学 No.53 (2008. ) ,p.9- 29 Abstract Notes Genre Departmental Bulletin Paper URL https://koara.lib.keio.ac.jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/detail.php?ko ara_id=AN10030060-20080930-0009 慶應義塾大学学術情報リポジトリ(KOARA)に掲載されているコンテンツの著作権は、それぞれの著作者、学会または出版社/発行者に帰属し、その権利は著作権法によって保護されています。引用にあたっては、著作権法を遵守してご利用ください。 The copyrights of content available on the KeiO Associated Repository of Academic resources (KOARA) belong to the respective authors, academic societies, or publishers/issuers, and these rights are protected by the Japanese Copyright Act. When quoting the content, please follow the Japanese copyright act. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) An Ecology of Representations: Zak Smith and Thomas Pynchon Keita Hatooka Laura: […]Mother calls them a glass menagerie! Here’s an example of one, if you’d like to see it! . Oh, be careful—if you breathe, it breaks! . You see how the light shines through him? Jim: It sure does shine! Laura: I shouldn’t be partial, but he is my favorite one. Jim: What kind of a thing is this one supposed to be? Laura: Haven’t you noticed the single horn on his forehead? Jim: A unicorn, huh? —aren’t they extinct in the modern world? Laura: I know! —Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie From one of his earliest short pieces of fi ction, “Entropy” (1960), through to his latest novel Against the Day (2006), Thomas Pynchon’s literary world has been set within the modern world, where not only unicorns, but also dodo birds are extinct.1 Yet perhaps, upon refl ection, it would be more accurate to see this literary creation as placed within the postmodern world where Pynchon’s characters cannot get over the idea that if they had stopped believing, on an epistemological level, in the chronological or theological or scientifi c order of their living world these creatures might have avoided extinction.
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Title An ecology of representations : Zak Smith and Thomas Pynchon Sub Title 表象のエコロジー : ザク・スミスとトマス・ピンチョン Author 波戸岡, 景太(Hatooka, Keita) Publisher 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会 Publication 2008 year Jtitle 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要. 英語英米文学 No.53 (2008. ) ,p.9- 29 Abstract Notes Genre Departmental Bulletin Paper URL http://koara.lib.keio.ac.jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/detail.php?koar a_id=AN10030060-20080930-0009 Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) An Ecology of Representations: Zak Smith and Thomas Pynchon Keita Hatooka Laura: […]Mother calls them a glass menagerie! Here’s an example of one, if you’d like to see it! . Oh, be careful—if you breathe, it breaks! . You see how the light shines through him? Jim: It sure does shine! Laura: I shouldn’t be partial, but he is my favorite one. Jim: What kind of a thing is this one supposed to be? Laura: Haven’t you noticed the single horn on his forehead? Jim: A unicorn, huh? —aren’t they extinct in the modern world? Laura: I know! —Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie From one of his earliest short pieces of fi ction, “Entropy” (1960), through to his latest novel Against the Day (2006), Thomas Pynchon’s literary world has been set within the modern world, where not only unicorns, but also dodo birds are extinct.1 Yet perhaps, upon refl ection, it would be more accurate to see this literary creation as placed within the postmodern world where Pynchon’s characters cannot get over the idea that if they had stopped believing, on an epistemological level, in the chronological or theological or scientifi c order of their living world these creatures might have avoided extinction.
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