The Sea Came in at Midnight

A sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing "memior of the future", this novel contains plot twists that in themselves are nothing short of amazing. The books many protagonists live as if in a surreal dreamworld of cultural movements, apocolyptic fear, horrific urban legends and even worse histories of the last century. The writing is very lyrical, but the narrative also has a frenetic science-fiction like pace that keeps you turning the pages with each cosmic coincidence. Very much like Delillo in delivery and Pynchonian in plot.

The three nights I spent reading Erickson's "The Sea Came at Midnight" were both riveting and disturbing. Rarely do I dream, but Erickson's fantasy gave my nights urgent and almost panicked visions. In retrospect I fancy my mind unable to process the wild implications and subconscious import driven to point by only the experiences of his few characters. "The Sea Came at Midnight" is not only beautifully written and well-composed, but it is also ominous... Like all significant works of writing it leaves you hungrier than sated, straining to bring into focus the looming world you know lays waiting behind the words -- A world that is more your own than Erickson's, because he has only given you a fleeting, piercing glimpse at all you refuse to perceive about humanity.

`The Sea Came in at Midnight' is so good it's scary. I'm worried that it will be a long time before I read another novel that is so accomplished and successful in its intent. Maybe I shouldn't worry...maybe I only have to wait until I read another of Erickson's novels before I encounter such mastery again.For me, the most enjoyable aspect of this novel was the elliptical paths the characters took. The way they crossed and re-crossed paths, never knowing the significance of the other in the way their lives have been shaped. Erickson manages this without forcing the relationships or situations in an artificial way. The story itself, though, is artificial and contrived - but I mean that in a positive way! Erickson's settings, the novels events and the characters motivations are grandiose and on an epic scale. He wants you to be confronted by his themes - the decay of society, the power of redemption and self-belief - so they are enlarged and made more bold by their scale. `The Sea Came in at Midnight' is a novel that trades in challenging the reader and the reader's perceptions. You will never forget the desperation of some characters and the despair of others. Never forget the hyper-realistic imagery - Tokyo memory hotels, the mass suicide, the shattered aquarium. And finally, never forget that you have been privileged to read a novel of truly stunning accomplishment.

In 1991 I read Erickson's *Tours of the Black Clock*, and came away touched to the core by his reckoning with evil, loss, and the secret history of the Twentieth Century; I felt in finishing the book as if I had been given an incredible gift. He was definitely going to be one to watch.Well, I devoured *Amnesiascope* and *Arc D'X* and *Rubicon Beach*, but despite the appearance of the same tropes (like J.G. Ballard, Erickson obsessively redeploys the same imagery, in his case fractured time, deserted Chinatowns, flooded cities) they didn't bring me off quite the way *Tours* did.Now *Sea* does, again. It's a haunting and beautiful meditation on time, loss, evil, and redemption - call it a scruffier alternate take on DeLillo's *Underworld*, for post-boomers. It's uneven in spots, but it did the work that all great writing is supposed to do: it triggered the simultaneous grief, acceptance, and joy in that acceptance that means you've arrived, at long last, at your own life. You should buy this book.Oh, and: thanks, Steve.

This is a remarkable achievement in plot and character, although it is certain to leave some readers dissatisfied, confused, or possibly uncomfortable. An assortment of men and women whose moods range from desperate to indifferent are set toward goals they barely comprehend: lost loves, personal identity, procreation, past mistakes they hope to correct, penance for their own sins and those they did not dissuade from evil. The milieu is the usual Erickson almost-real world, a damp, dark place where beings are never fully in control of their energies, needs, and cravings. This is a very erotic book, but one that also crosses into the realm of sexual violence. There are no stereotypes. Every one of the many characters lives and breaths in a macrocosm in which paths continually cross at critical moments. Some readers will not like the complexity. Some would rather not read about sexual exploitation. Some will fail to recognize the remarkable and fully credible transition from despair to hope that this story tells.