Zanesville

I'd read the rave review for this book in LA CityBeat and was curious about how it would match up against expectations. The answer? Zanesville is one of the funniest, lewdest and most disturbing books I've ever read. I can't think of a book in recent memory that displayed such a unique quality of imagination. The fictional world, and it is a world, is brought to life with such intensity of detail. Even if you're not a fan of out-there new fiction, you will enjoy and admire the humor. At several points I laughed out loud and had to read passages back to myself. Really fun, inventive stuff. This is one of the few new books that lives up to the rave reviews.

Zanesville is like bluetooth text transmission, wireless, no big spikes through the back of your skull like in the matrix. And this old historic world Saknussemm paints, that hints of the absinthe soaked debaucheries of Baudelaire and dreadful biblical forebodings, already reeks of the techno-paranoia that is to follow. This is a world of the putrid stenches that linger beneath the sanitised vinyl seats of a busy commuter train. Strange albino children obscured in sedative fogs. Butch pixies. Cracked lips oozing collagen. Adventures in the Patrick Swayze Center for Serious Depression. Overnight stays in the Will Smith Hotel. Flesh and machine unified, bodily secretions and digitised DNA sequences. This is not a map-on-the-first-page fantasy novel, these biomechanoids that hang around in derelict factory precincts aren't carrying your light sabre, they want to wear your face. It reminds you that plastic is made out of oil and oil is made out of dead animals and rotten trees. It's a anarchistic spiritual journey this text, a satirical metamorphosis of our dystopic 20th century fondness for infomercials and the latest gadget into a twisted nightmarish future of drug dependency, addiction to superficial surgery and bioengineering, a broken urban landscape littered with the remnants of an exhausted consumerist ideology, a slapped stick insect leaking its green guts onto grandma's favourite lace tablecloth, or a smashed flatscreen monitor oozing liquid crystals onto an autopsy table. Saknussemm has shoved his way into the broken line of my favourite authors, he writes with the mastery of the greats, Baudelaire, Lautremont, Philip K Dick, William Burroughs, JG Ballard, Umberto Eco to name but a few. He creates a new version of the old familiar world, a new fractal of the possible direction we could all slide if this dimension continues as it is. Do yourself a favour and read Zanesville, read it three times. This is a condensed version of my full review and interview with the author Kris Saknussemm at Retort Magazine.

Saknussemm sets in motion an army of bizzarre characters and conditions that make for intense reading that will get under your skin. I found myself seeing strange scenes in my sleep, which I could only account for as a result of my reading Zanesville the night before. There is an underlying intelligence to the writing that will keep you as stimulated as the action. Of course, as with all strong futuristic fiction, the commentary on our world today is clear and cutting. So the story is clicking on multiple cylinders simultaneously. Interesting to see what the author comes up with next.

This is not the kind of book I would normally pick up. But I did pick it up, and once I was into it I could not put it down. This is a book for a thinker who loves humor, wit, and having his perceptions of the world challenged. The main character, Clearfather, was engaging and intriguing, and I enjoyed finding out more about him as he found out more about himself. The supporting cast were funny and odd and endearing and ... well, very enjoyable. The multitude of cultural and political references is amazing - and the genius of how Saknussemm did it was that I could not really tell whether I didn't `get' something because I was simply ignorant of it, or because he made it up. He weaves fantasy and reality together so skillfully that I was completely taken in, in a way - I felt as if I just had to keep reading to see if I could figure it out. I'll definitely be reading this again - it made me think in such an enjoyable way!

For anyone who thought there weren't any more smart, druggy cult books being written, you have some serious fun ahead of you. I was reading a chapter on a bus and I started laughing so hard I had to get off. Now I'm on the bandwagon. Some people will think what the F#$k? Others will defend this book with their lives.