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These Dreams of You
One November night in a canyon outside L.A., Zan Nordhoc--a failed novelist turned pirate-radio DJ--sits before the television with his small, adopted black daughter, watching the election of his country's first black president. In the nova of this historic moment, with an economic recession threatening their home, Zan, his wife and their son set out to solve the enigma of a little girl whose body is a radio, broadcasting a future rhythm & blues that circles the sphere of time. Scattered across two continents, the family meets a mysterious stranger with a secret who sends the story spiraling forty years into the past, from '60s London to '70s Berlin, from the ground zero of civilization to a New World mid-air in its leap of imagination. (20111014)
309 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
14 people are currently reading
981 people want to read
About the author
Steve Erickson
61 books470 followersSteve Erickson is the author of ten novels: Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, Tours of the Black Clock, Arc d'X, Amnesiascope, The Sea Came in at Midnight, Our Ecstatic Days, Zeroville, These Dreams of You and Shadowbahn. He also has written two books about American politics and popular culture, Leap Year and American Nomad. Numerous editions have been published in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Greek, Russian and Japanese. Over the years he has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Conjunctions, Salon, the L.A. Weekly, the New York Times Magazine and other publications and journals, and his work has been widely anthologized. For twelve years he was editor and co-founder of the national literary journal Black Clock, and currently he is the film/television critic for Los Angeles magazine and teaches writing at the University of California, Riverside. He has received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature, a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and twice has been nominated for the National Magazine Award for criticism and commentary.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
September 19, 2014
I’ve long been a fan of Steve Erickson’s film criticism and my first foray into his novels did not disappoint. I loved Zeroville, which I read a couple of months ago, which didn’t really surprise me, although the intensity of the whole experience was more than I’d hoped for. But this. This! These Dreams of You pushed so many of my particular buttons all at once, it’s wonder I didn’t have a stroke. Part of the appeal was personal, but the quality of the work more objectively (if there is such a thing in reacting to a book) is enough to earn very serious raves on its own.
In spite of its being set in several different cities around the world, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Berlin, Paris, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, across 40 years and two stories (this novel and its novel-within-a novel, a work in progress by the writer-protagonist), this is very much an American story. One Goodreads reviewer called it Erickson’s “love song” to America, and that’s apt, as it references music throughout in varied and wonderful ways, just another element that bumped this up beyond 5-star territory.
I hardly know where to start. The multitudes of ideas and themes in this book make the prospect of reviewing it feel a bit like herding cats. I’d promised to try to write something coherent. I will write something. The part about coherence, however, I cannot guarantee in my current state of giddy book-love. The story involves:
The idealism of the 1960s; the election of Barrack Obama; girls that mysteriously exude music from their bodies; the Great Recession of the 1990’s and villainous mortgage officers; a coked-up out- of- his- mind David Bowie and his 1976 escape from L.A. to Germany with Iggy Pop, where they start work on Bowie’s masterful Berlin trilogy; the most precocious four-year-old character you’ve met in a while; a bit of time-travel; some synchronicity; and a family scattered across the globe, financially broke and lost to each other; the Old World and New World colliding, origins and future potentiality; thoughts on creative mash-ups vs. originality; secrets and mysteries and hauntings; Bobby Kennedy and echoes of Faulkner.
The action of the story revolves around the family of Zan (Alexander) and Viv, a white middle-class couple living in Los Angeles who have adopted a little girl from Ethiopia, named (by them) Sheba, but whose real name is Zema, which has a meaning close to, but not exactly, “hymn.” Viv’s compulsion to try to find Sheba’s birth mother, although it may cause more problems than it solves, starts a chain reaction of events that comprise the plot.
This novel seems to speak to me of synchronicity within its world, and there also seemed a certain synchronicity with events unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri, the week after I finished the book. One of the main questions the protagonist deals with is, how does one reconcile the ideals of a country dedicated to the principles of equality, freedom for all and opportunity with the sometimes dismal realities of history and present day realities, whether the American Dream can be said to belong to anyone if it’s denied to some, and also the importance of keeping the faith in its possibility, regardless.
Zan and Viv , who already had a son of their own, now a preteen, are experiencing economic freefall in 2008 as Barack Obama ascends to the presidency. The idea of responsibility -- political, personal, familial, professional, and financial -- is explored through various storylines, with no clear-cut answers to the questions raised. There is Viv’s sense of responsibility to learn about Sheba’s parentage and having to accept the subsequent consequences of her search. Zan has long been troubled by an incident where a professional colleague’s career was derailed due to an action of his that was not malicious, but harmful nonetheless. There is the matter of their fiscal situation: they are about to lose their quirky, beloved, custom-built house to foreclosure. How much of this is attributable to Zan’s deficiencies as a bread-winner and how much to corporate malfeasance in this land of supposed opportunity that is actually an oligarchy isn’t clear, although there are some nightmarishly humorous scenes of conversations with mortgage officers, clearly conveying some out-and-out evil on the one side. Against these events is set the question of racial inequality in America juxtaposed against our ideals and the failure of our responsibility in achieving those ideals.
In addition to political idealism and the 1960s as an “epoch stoned on the waft of possibility,” other ideas swirl across the 40 year time span of the novel, including creativity and its influences and what one can claim as one’s own; bonds between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons; and the pathology of zealotry (whether it’s left or right). The geographic, historical and pop cultural references loop around and around, weaving a dense fabric of associations. It all gets kind of meta, especially when Zan begins work on a novel-within-a-novel wherein a character leaves behind a document that appears in Zan’s world, in a mystical-seeming meta-loop that reminds me of certain events and artifacts in Erickson’s Zeroville. Recurring images include labyrinths, fittingly.
Ideas about the nature of the creative impulse are explored: what happens when artistic endeavors are stolen, or adapted, or revised, until they become something else, and bend back so far the other way, they may become original again. And this story is permeated with music references. Zan is a has-been novelist working as a pirate DJ who compiles playlists in his head, musicians show up as characters, and Sheba transmits a barely audible music, which comes to make a certain kind of sense within the story, if a reason can be both mystical and logical. For anyone well-acquainted with some of the songs, there are some fun little easter eggs buried in the language and events.
In the end it’s largely about identity, holding onto faith, and about coming home to where we ultimately belong.
Just as Sheba hums with a certain frequency, sometimes there are certain books that hum in a certain frequency that make them yours. This is one of those books for me.
And there’s a playlist! courtesy of Largeheartedboy (with quotes from the book): http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/a... ‘Scuse me, I have to go listen to Low 8 or 9 times.
In spite of its being set in several different cities around the world, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Berlin, Paris, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, across 40 years and two stories (this novel and its novel-within-a novel, a work in progress by the writer-protagonist), this is very much an American story. One Goodreads reviewer called it Erickson’s “love song” to America, and that’s apt, as it references music throughout in varied and wonderful ways, just another element that bumped this up beyond 5-star territory.
I hardly know where to start. The multitudes of ideas and themes in this book make the prospect of reviewing it feel a bit like herding cats. I’d promised to try to write something coherent. I will write something. The part about coherence, however, I cannot guarantee in my current state of giddy book-love. The story involves:
The idealism of the 1960s; the election of Barrack Obama; girls that mysteriously exude music from their bodies; the Great Recession of the 1990’s and villainous mortgage officers; a coked-up out- of- his- mind David Bowie and his 1976 escape from L.A. to Germany with Iggy Pop, where they start work on Bowie’s masterful Berlin trilogy; the most precocious four-year-old character you’ve met in a while; a bit of time-travel; some synchronicity; and a family scattered across the globe, financially broke and lost to each other; the Old World and New World colliding, origins and future potentiality; thoughts on creative mash-ups vs. originality; secrets and mysteries and hauntings; Bobby Kennedy and echoes of Faulkner.
The action of the story revolves around the family of Zan (Alexander) and Viv, a white middle-class couple living in Los Angeles who have adopted a little girl from Ethiopia, named (by them) Sheba, but whose real name is Zema, which has a meaning close to, but not exactly, “hymn.” Viv’s compulsion to try to find Sheba’s birth mother, although it may cause more problems than it solves, starts a chain reaction of events that comprise the plot.
This novel seems to speak to me of synchronicity within its world, and there also seemed a certain synchronicity with events unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri, the week after I finished the book. One of the main questions the protagonist deals with is, how does one reconcile the ideals of a country dedicated to the principles of equality, freedom for all and opportunity with the sometimes dismal realities of history and present day realities, whether the American Dream can be said to belong to anyone if it’s denied to some, and also the importance of keeping the faith in its possibility, regardless.
Zan and Viv , who already had a son of their own, now a preteen, are experiencing economic freefall in 2008 as Barack Obama ascends to the presidency. The idea of responsibility -- political, personal, familial, professional, and financial -- is explored through various storylines, with no clear-cut answers to the questions raised. There is Viv’s sense of responsibility to learn about Sheba’s parentage and having to accept the subsequent consequences of her search. Zan has long been troubled by an incident where a professional colleague’s career was derailed due to an action of his that was not malicious, but harmful nonetheless. There is the matter of their fiscal situation: they are about to lose their quirky, beloved, custom-built house to foreclosure. How much of this is attributable to Zan’s deficiencies as a bread-winner and how much to corporate malfeasance in this land of supposed opportunity that is actually an oligarchy isn’t clear, although there are some nightmarishly humorous scenes of conversations with mortgage officers, clearly conveying some out-and-out evil on the one side. Against these events is set the question of racial inequality in America juxtaposed against our ideals and the failure of our responsibility in achieving those ideals.
In addition to political idealism and the 1960s as an “epoch stoned on the waft of possibility,” other ideas swirl across the 40 year time span of the novel, including creativity and its influences and what one can claim as one’s own; bonds between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons; and the pathology of zealotry (whether it’s left or right). The geographic, historical and pop cultural references loop around and around, weaving a dense fabric of associations. It all gets kind of meta, especially when Zan begins work on a novel-within-a-novel wherein a character leaves behind a document that appears in Zan’s world, in a mystical-seeming meta-loop that reminds me of certain events and artifacts in Erickson’s Zeroville. Recurring images include labyrinths, fittingly.
Ideas about the nature of the creative impulse are explored: what happens when artistic endeavors are stolen, or adapted, or revised, until they become something else, and bend back so far the other way, they may become original again. And this story is permeated with music references. Zan is a has-been novelist working as a pirate DJ who compiles playlists in his head, musicians show up as characters, and Sheba transmits a barely audible music, which comes to make a certain kind of sense within the story, if a reason can be both mystical and logical. For anyone well-acquainted with some of the songs, there are some fun little easter eggs buried in the language and events.
In the end it’s largely about identity, holding onto faith, and about coming home to where we ultimately belong.
Just as Sheba hums with a certain frequency, sometimes there are certain books that hum in a certain frequency that make them yours. This is one of those books for me.
And there’s a playlist! courtesy of Largeheartedboy (with quotes from the book): http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/a... ‘Scuse me, I have to go listen to Low 8 or 9 times.
March 18, 2014
What do Bobby Kennedy, David Bowie, James Joyce's Molly Bloom, President Obama, and MatthewMarkLuke&John have in common? Outside of this book, probably not much.
If you had an acid-head friend with attention deficit who was also a gifted raconteur, his stories might come to you in this sort of fever-dream fashion. A little time travel, a few riffs and rants on politics, plagiarism, coincidence, race, religion, literature. A little incoherent rambling. And every once in awhile a shining jewel of truth.
2008. A white American family has adopted Sheba, an Ethiopian girl who is now four years old. Oh, and her body also happens to be a radio transmitter. Got that? So one day Viv, her turquoise-haired adoptive mom, ups and decides she's gotta go to Addis Ababa and find Sheba's biological mother. Meanwhile Zan, her adoptive father, is off to London with his 12-year-old son Parker.
From here on out, it's anybody's guess where things will go. 1968. 1921. 1989. Berlin. Los Angeles. Paris. Nonlinear, present tense, by turns nonsensical and brilliant, occasionally hilarious. I should have hated this book, but I found it irritatingly irresistible.
There are some similarities to Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars and Frederick Reiken's Day for Night in the way Erickson plays with degrees of separation, mystical connections, and the illusory nature of time and space.
I had to consider the book in its entirety before I could see that it is Steve Erickson's love song to America, absent of all mawkishness or jingoism. We bicker and blame, canonize and then cannibalize our leaders, destroy our economy with impatience and greed. And yet, the America we've got is better than not.
Erickson says it best in this passage from page 301:
"It's a country that does things in lurches, but when the high altitude of the great leap -- of either faith or imagination, assuming one exists without the other -- has given way to the next morning's bends, the country peers around and wonders where it landed. Be that as it may, Zan can't relinquish his memory of the melody, can't bring himself to be unhaunted by it. There's no other song he believes in more or nearly as much. By the din of circumstance or the roar of other voices or some combination of them, in the void no one else sings anything else as true or worth singing. Zan's country always has belonged to the rest of the world's imagination more than its own, and sitting here in an airport three thousand miles away, he still hears the song around him, from London to the ruins of the Berlin barricade once built in a futile attempt to keep the song out."
If you had an acid-head friend with attention deficit who was also a gifted raconteur, his stories might come to you in this sort of fever-dream fashion. A little time travel, a few riffs and rants on politics, plagiarism, coincidence, race, religion, literature. A little incoherent rambling. And every once in awhile a shining jewel of truth.
2008. A white American family has adopted Sheba, an Ethiopian girl who is now four years old. Oh, and her body also happens to be a radio transmitter. Got that? So one day Viv, her turquoise-haired adoptive mom, ups and decides she's gotta go to Addis Ababa and find Sheba's biological mother. Meanwhile Zan, her adoptive father, is off to London with his 12-year-old son Parker.
From here on out, it's anybody's guess where things will go. 1968. 1921. 1989. Berlin. Los Angeles. Paris. Nonlinear, present tense, by turns nonsensical and brilliant, occasionally hilarious. I should have hated this book, but I found it irritatingly irresistible.
There are some similarities to Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars and Frederick Reiken's Day for Night in the way Erickson plays with degrees of separation, mystical connections, and the illusory nature of time and space.
I had to consider the book in its entirety before I could see that it is Steve Erickson's love song to America, absent of all mawkishness or jingoism. We bicker and blame, canonize and then cannibalize our leaders, destroy our economy with impatience and greed. And yet, the America we've got is better than not.
Erickson says it best in this passage from page 301:
"It's a country that does things in lurches, but when the high altitude of the great leap -- of either faith or imagination, assuming one exists without the other -- has given way to the next morning's bends, the country peers around and wonders where it landed. Be that as it may, Zan can't relinquish his memory of the melody, can't bring himself to be unhaunted by it. There's no other song he believes in more or nearly as much. By the din of circumstance or the roar of other voices or some combination of them, in the void no one else sings anything else as true or worth singing. Zan's country always has belonged to the rest of the world's imagination more than its own, and sitting here in an airport three thousand miles away, he still hears the song around him, from London to the ruins of the Berlin barricade once built in a futile attempt to keep the song out."
April 5, 2012
It’s a rhythm and blues from the future that’s spiraled round the sphere of time to come back up through its birth canal.
Before I could react, a hood thrown over my head, my person shoved from behind into a waiting ghost van peeling a smokescreen so thick no two witnesses report seeing the same thing. Coming to, dazed on the cusp of a deep canyon near an abandoned bridge spanning a thin blue thread nestled below, the only thought I can muster to wonder aloud: all this from reading a book?
Standing unsteadily, searching in darkness for what scattered shards haven’t already blown over the edge in the building crosswinds, I go through the motions, fusing starlight with collected remnants into a memory trigger of remote origins.
Faintly at first, volume rising, I recall thunderclaps detonating, unfolding overhead, if not within. Fractal echoes swirling with reverse intensity, fading not through diminishing ricochet. In their deafening wake, silence rushes in, flooding the void. Buried deep in the center, barely discernible, a song pleads to be heard. A secret song embedded with mystery.
Music broadcasts from the room at the beginning of time, in the chambers of our radio-heart. Harmonics resonate, folding in upon themselves, overlapping past and future events in the spiraling apex of now; the song bleeding through all, bleeding history dry.
Never lose the transmission, the song from before birth. If lost, it can splinter into numberless facsimiles drowning everything in noise. The song from before history strives to remain in our ears. It is the song of our future transcending our past; the song of time shedding itself.
Before I could react, a hood thrown over my head, my person shoved from behind into a waiting ghost van peeling a smokescreen so thick no two witnesses report seeing the same thing. Coming to, dazed on the cusp of a deep canyon near an abandoned bridge spanning a thin blue thread nestled below, the only thought I can muster to wonder aloud: all this from reading a book?
Standing unsteadily, searching in darkness for what scattered shards haven’t already blown over the edge in the building crosswinds, I go through the motions, fusing starlight with collected remnants into a memory trigger of remote origins.
Faintly at first, volume rising, I recall thunderclaps detonating, unfolding overhead, if not within. Fractal echoes swirling with reverse intensity, fading not through diminishing ricochet. In their deafening wake, silence rushes in, flooding the void. Buried deep in the center, barely discernible, a song pleads to be heard. A secret song embedded with mystery.
Music broadcasts from the room at the beginning of time, in the chambers of our radio-heart. Harmonics resonate, folding in upon themselves, overlapping past and future events in the spiraling apex of now; the song bleeding through all, bleeding history dry.
Never lose the transmission, the song from before birth. If lost, it can splinter into numberless facsimiles drowning everything in noise. The song from before history strives to remain in our ears. It is the song of our future transcending our past; the song of time shedding itself.
July 2, 2012
post-read: Ooh boy, Steve Erickson is so superb. This was really different than I expected (read: really different from
Zeroville
); it was hyper-realistic, not at all stylized, with really normal, messy characters grappling with kind of huge issues—race, adoption, debt, historical precedent, what it means to be American, stuff like that. But then it was also somehow in pieces and a little bit twistily meta—our main character is also a writer, who is kind of writing a story that has things that kind of also happen in this story, but to different characters, kind of; it's hard to explain. But it's very twisty, and very subtle, cycling and cycling back on itself in a weirdly brilliant and kind of harrowing way.
The one thing he did do which was just like I remembered from Zeroville was have characters who were real people from history or pop culture, but never actually say who they were, just drop a lot of clues like dates and hair color and sometimes quotes. I guess this is cool, but as someone who was raised by hippies with no TV, I am almost wholly without pop-culture knowledge, so it's just frustrating to know that I really ought to know who these people are but I just don't. I guess Wikipedia could have told me if I tried hard enough, but I never did.
Anyway, I loved this. About 4/5 of the way in, it occurred to me that it was well within Erickson's power to very seriously fuck up all of the characters—and, by extension, me—which would have made me extremely upset. It's not much of a spoiler to say that he didn't, not really, for which I am terribly grateful; grateful enough to read another of his books as soon as I can.
pre-read: Europa was kind enough to have a pre-BEA breakfast last week, kind enough to invite me because I've done a fair bit of proofreading for them, and kind enough to send me off with this, among several other very awesome books.
I love this already because 1) It was free, 2) I loveloveloveloved Zeroville, although oddly I haven't made any attempt to read more Erickson since, and 3) The title is (I assume) from Van Morrison, whom I also adore, and so I've decided that while I read this I'll listen to Van Morrison the whole time, which is lovely.
I will tell you this, though: I really wish Europa had asked me to proofread this one, because it's kind of a mess.
The one thing he did do which was just like I remembered from Zeroville was have characters who were real people from history or pop culture, but never actually say who they were, just drop a lot of clues like dates and hair color and sometimes quotes. I guess this is cool, but as someone who was raised by hippies with no TV, I am almost wholly without pop-culture knowledge, so it's just frustrating to know that I really ought to know who these people are but I just don't. I guess Wikipedia could have told me if I tried hard enough, but I never did.
Anyway, I loved this. About 4/5 of the way in, it occurred to me that it was well within Erickson's power to very seriously fuck up all of the characters—and, by extension, me—which would have made me extremely upset. It's not much of a spoiler to say that he didn't, not really, for which I am terribly grateful; grateful enough to read another of his books as soon as I can.
pre-read: Europa was kind enough to have a pre-BEA breakfast last week, kind enough to invite me because I've done a fair bit of proofreading for them, and kind enough to send me off with this, among several other very awesome books.
I love this already because 1) It was free, 2) I loveloveloveloved Zeroville, although oddly I haven't made any attempt to read more Erickson since, and 3) The title is (I assume) from Van Morrison, whom I also adore, and so I've decided that while I read this I'll listen to Van Morrison the whole time, which is lovely.
I will tell you this, though: I really wish Europa had asked me to proofread this one, because it's kind of a mess.
July 5, 2017
NOTE: Reading back over this review five years later in 2017, this book has taken on the feel of an elegy, with Shadowbahn, perhaps unwittingly the first major novel of the Trump era, its apocalyptic successor. Just read the excerpt I pulled out toward the end of the review; it makes my heart hurt.
------
This review was first published by The New York Journal of Books in 2012. I reproduce it here. I also named it my favorite book of that year, with additional thoughts here.
“Here are we, one magical moment
Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven.”
—David Bowie
On a Tuesday evening in November 2008, Alexander “Zan” Nordhoc sits in a rocking chair with his adopted Ethiopian daughter Sheba, watching his country elect its first black president. On the television, thousands of people celebrate in the same Chicago park where 40 years before thousands of people rioted.
In Los Angeles, Zan’s wife Viv and 12-year-old son Parker exalt in jubilation. Sheba, the family’s adopted 4-year-old “who talks like she’s 20,” is the family’s lone supporter of the losing candidate. Good liberal that he is, Zan wonders if a middle-aged white man has the right to hold his head in his hands and cry—thinking he probably doesn’t—then does it anyway.
This is how Steve Erickson’s magnificent novel These Dreams of You opens, with a tableaux as all-American now as it was unthinkable not long ago: a family proud of what their country has achieved, reveling in the racial progress it has made.
But the spectacle is a temporary respite for the Nordhocs, who are mired in a financial quagmire that predates the national recession (“or before the rest of the country knew theirs had begun, too”): their house faces foreclosure, Viv’s career as a photographer has stalled after she fell victim to plagiarism, and Zan has been unemployed since his contract as a university professor was suspended. He spends his afternoons as a deejay for a pirate radio station his wife can only hear in 30-second increments, and only if she’s in range.
As Sheba gets older, she begins to ask questions about why her skin is darker than anyone else’s in her class—Viv knows the day is soon coming when her daughter will ask where she came from, and Viv needs to know more about Sheba’s birth mother: Why did she put her daughter up for adoption? Where is she now? But information is hard to find from Los Angeles. When Zan is offered the chance to lecture in London, Viv flies alone to Ethiopia on a fact-finding mission.
That just scratches the surface of this audacious novel, but readers should be left to discover where the story goes from here on their own. It’s enough to say that the mystery of Sheba’s mother is about to spiral out into parallel narratives spanning three continents and four decades, blurring reality as it appropriates historical figures as well as a character from Zan’s long-unfinished novel.
As in Zeroville, Mr. Erickson’s previous novel, These Dreams of You is told in short kinetic bursts, some no longer than a paragraph, and moves at a propulsive pace. As readers rush headlong toward its climax, they may feel as if they have emerged from something like a fever dream, as torrents of ideas and images wash over them (read this in as few sittings as possible for maximum effect).
Just as cinema drove the action of Zeroville, music joyously informs every page of These Dreams of You. Allusions abound, from the Van Morrison reference in the title, to the character of Sheba, who is said to emit an audible hum (usually playing the same David Bowie song on repeat) like a human radio, connecting her with the characters from other time periods. Given the story’s circular nature, with one era blending unannounced into the next, music becomes the common link.
While it might seem like These Dreams of You is a cerebral exercise, a brainteaser the reader has to work out, its greatest achievement is how urgent it feels. It is defiantly a book for our time, sweeping in scope but just as effective in tapping into smaller-scale fears that many Americans in 2012 will relate to: the ineffable sense that something that bound us together is being lost to time. At one point Zan becomes separated from everyone in his family, a sequence that is as emotionally bruising as anything in recent fiction. “I know I did something wrong,” he despairs, “but I don’t know what.”
The lecture Zan is hired to give concerns “the Novel as a Literary Form Facing Obsolescence in the 21st Century,” and this book could well be asking the same question about America: Is America an idea whose time has passed? Mr. Erickson addresses it head on:
“The one thing Zan knows for sure is that, should the song of his country finally fade and be silent, it will never quite be possible again to believe in it. . . . Should the silencing of the song come to pass, not only will Zan be complicit in the loss of his own faith, he will be complicit for having had faith in the first place. But without such faith, the country—this country in particular—is nothing.
“This is the occupational hazard of being of my country,” he continues, “with a people still fighting over who they are because when nothing else is held in common but the idea then if the idea isn’t held in common there’s nothing left except the mystical name of the place that evokes something different for each person but which each person allows himself or herself to believe is the same thing evoked for every other person.”
Over his first eight novels, Mr. Erickson earned a reputation for writing innovative, structurally daring surrealist fiction. But These Dreams of You feels like a culmination, written by a novelist in full command of his voice and his message. It’s no small feat, considering all the balls he’s juggling, and whether everything ties together in an ironclad way ultimately doesn’t matter.
These Dreams of You is a big novel of big ideas, emotionally capacious and desperately relevant. It deserves to be read.
------
This review was first published by The New York Journal of Books in 2012. I reproduce it here. I also named it my favorite book of that year, with additional thoughts here.
“Here are we, one magical moment
Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven.”
—David Bowie
On a Tuesday evening in November 2008, Alexander “Zan” Nordhoc sits in a rocking chair with his adopted Ethiopian daughter Sheba, watching his country elect its first black president. On the television, thousands of people celebrate in the same Chicago park where 40 years before thousands of people rioted.
In Los Angeles, Zan’s wife Viv and 12-year-old son Parker exalt in jubilation. Sheba, the family’s adopted 4-year-old “who talks like she’s 20,” is the family’s lone supporter of the losing candidate. Good liberal that he is, Zan wonders if a middle-aged white man has the right to hold his head in his hands and cry—thinking he probably doesn’t—then does it anyway.
This is how Steve Erickson’s magnificent novel These Dreams of You opens, with a tableaux as all-American now as it was unthinkable not long ago: a family proud of what their country has achieved, reveling in the racial progress it has made.
But the spectacle is a temporary respite for the Nordhocs, who are mired in a financial quagmire that predates the national recession (“or before the rest of the country knew theirs had begun, too”): their house faces foreclosure, Viv’s career as a photographer has stalled after she fell victim to plagiarism, and Zan has been unemployed since his contract as a university professor was suspended. He spends his afternoons as a deejay for a pirate radio station his wife can only hear in 30-second increments, and only if she’s in range.
As Sheba gets older, she begins to ask questions about why her skin is darker than anyone else’s in her class—Viv knows the day is soon coming when her daughter will ask where she came from, and Viv needs to know more about Sheba’s birth mother: Why did she put her daughter up for adoption? Where is she now? But information is hard to find from Los Angeles. When Zan is offered the chance to lecture in London, Viv flies alone to Ethiopia on a fact-finding mission.
That just scratches the surface of this audacious novel, but readers should be left to discover where the story goes from here on their own. It’s enough to say that the mystery of Sheba’s mother is about to spiral out into parallel narratives spanning three continents and four decades, blurring reality as it appropriates historical figures as well as a character from Zan’s long-unfinished novel.
As in Zeroville, Mr. Erickson’s previous novel, These Dreams of You is told in short kinetic bursts, some no longer than a paragraph, and moves at a propulsive pace. As readers rush headlong toward its climax, they may feel as if they have emerged from something like a fever dream, as torrents of ideas and images wash over them (read this in as few sittings as possible for maximum effect).
Just as cinema drove the action of Zeroville, music joyously informs every page of These Dreams of You. Allusions abound, from the Van Morrison reference in the title, to the character of Sheba, who is said to emit an audible hum (usually playing the same David Bowie song on repeat) like a human radio, connecting her with the characters from other time periods. Given the story’s circular nature, with one era blending unannounced into the next, music becomes the common link.
While it might seem like These Dreams of You is a cerebral exercise, a brainteaser the reader has to work out, its greatest achievement is how urgent it feels. It is defiantly a book for our time, sweeping in scope but just as effective in tapping into smaller-scale fears that many Americans in 2012 will relate to: the ineffable sense that something that bound us together is being lost to time. At one point Zan becomes separated from everyone in his family, a sequence that is as emotionally bruising as anything in recent fiction. “I know I did something wrong,” he despairs, “but I don’t know what.”
The lecture Zan is hired to give concerns “the Novel as a Literary Form Facing Obsolescence in the 21st Century,” and this book could well be asking the same question about America: Is America an idea whose time has passed? Mr. Erickson addresses it head on:
“The one thing Zan knows for sure is that, should the song of his country finally fade and be silent, it will never quite be possible again to believe in it. . . . Should the silencing of the song come to pass, not only will Zan be complicit in the loss of his own faith, he will be complicit for having had faith in the first place. But without such faith, the country—this country in particular—is nothing.
“This is the occupational hazard of being of my country,” he continues, “with a people still fighting over who they are because when nothing else is held in common but the idea then if the idea isn’t held in common there’s nothing left except the mystical name of the place that evokes something different for each person but which each person allows himself or herself to believe is the same thing evoked for every other person.”
Over his first eight novels, Mr. Erickson earned a reputation for writing innovative, structurally daring surrealist fiction. But These Dreams of You feels like a culmination, written by a novelist in full command of his voice and his message. It’s no small feat, considering all the balls he’s juggling, and whether everything ties together in an ironclad way ultimately doesn’t matter.
These Dreams of You is a big novel of big ideas, emotionally capacious and desperately relevant. It deserves to be read.
August 8, 2012
Roughly 70 pages into the novel These Dreams of You by Steve Erickson I was ready to boldly proclaim it the best book of 2012. It had much of what I so frequently look for in a novel–believable characters, social commentary, a suspenseful plot, and touches of avant-gard aesthetics that don’t bog down the whole. By the end of the book, I wasn’t so sure it was still the best of the year–due in part to occasional middling portions, but also due to the upcoming releases by Martin Amis, Michael Chabon, and Zadie Smith–I was however sure it should be considered one of the most important novels of the budding century.
Why such accolades? There’s one thing that These Dreams of You has going for it that so few novels now can claim for themselves: it’s set in the present. Okay, to be fair, it starts with the inauguration of Barack Obama and doesn’t quite reach the present day, but it’s more keyed in to the current state of affairs in America than so much of what’s out there.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you read a fiction book set around 2012? So much of popular fiction now is historical, or at least set a few decades in the past (what’s the cutoff for the term ‘historical?’). Even Harry Potter is set in a world before cellphones. Something about the present is daunting to writers. The past has its charm because it’s happened; history offers a sense of orderliness to the writer–the story has already been told.
Steve Erickson however isn’t an author who looks for easy solutions. What’s more, he’s an artist that not only accepts chaos, but relishes in it. These Dreams of You is loosely structured throughout; to give you an idea, the novel starts with the protagonist musing over the election results, then fast-forwards to the peak of the housing crisis, only to zoom back in time for a lengthy and affectionate retelling of the rise and fall of Bobby Kennedy.
These Dreams of You centers around the Nordhoc family–although you can say the novel goes through a process of decentering too. Alexander Nordhoc, a former novelist turned radio DJ and guest lecturer, is a father of two children, a son named Parker, and an adopted African girl nicknamed Sheba. His wife, an artist, decides all of a sudden it’s necessary to discover the truth behind Sheba’s parentage, a quest that takes the Nordhocs from America to London, Berlin, and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
Considering how this is written by Steve Erickson, a master of twisty and labyrinthine poststructural novels, you can expect some liberties taken with the notion of a traditional narrative. Fans of Thomas Pynchon are bound to find similarities in terms of freewheeling plotting, and readers of Don Delillo are sure to enjoy Erickson’s wonderfully concise philosophizing. If those names don’t ring a bell, then simply read These Dreams of You for the provocative and well-crafted prose.
Examples:
“For months the new president is the only thing that makes Zan happy, the only thing that interrupts the billowing gloom of his life. At the moment it doesn’t matter if this is a delusion.”
“Am I a ghost? she wonders in her descent, following–into its labyrinth of tunnels and bridges, lined by high walls covered with moss–all the narrow, winding stone steps of her new abysmal city. Am I in an abyss of time, or one of space?”
“Driving into this light he would have the feeling that he seems to have more and more as he gets older–of the past seeping into the present and marked by the quality of a particular light when he turns a bend of the road.”
More than anything else, These Dreams of You is one thing: necessary reading.
--Reviewed by Corey Pung, author of The Madness of Art: Short Stories and A Rapturous Occasion
Why such accolades? There’s one thing that These Dreams of You has going for it that so few novels now can claim for themselves: it’s set in the present. Okay, to be fair, it starts with the inauguration of Barack Obama and doesn’t quite reach the present day, but it’s more keyed in to the current state of affairs in America than so much of what’s out there.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you read a fiction book set around 2012? So much of popular fiction now is historical, or at least set a few decades in the past (what’s the cutoff for the term ‘historical?’). Even Harry Potter is set in a world before cellphones. Something about the present is daunting to writers. The past has its charm because it’s happened; history offers a sense of orderliness to the writer–the story has already been told.
Steve Erickson however isn’t an author who looks for easy solutions. What’s more, he’s an artist that not only accepts chaos, but relishes in it. These Dreams of You is loosely structured throughout; to give you an idea, the novel starts with the protagonist musing over the election results, then fast-forwards to the peak of the housing crisis, only to zoom back in time for a lengthy and affectionate retelling of the rise and fall of Bobby Kennedy.
These Dreams of You centers around the Nordhoc family–although you can say the novel goes through a process of decentering too. Alexander Nordhoc, a former novelist turned radio DJ and guest lecturer, is a father of two children, a son named Parker, and an adopted African girl nicknamed Sheba. His wife, an artist, decides all of a sudden it’s necessary to discover the truth behind Sheba’s parentage, a quest that takes the Nordhocs from America to London, Berlin, and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
Considering how this is written by Steve Erickson, a master of twisty and labyrinthine poststructural novels, you can expect some liberties taken with the notion of a traditional narrative. Fans of Thomas Pynchon are bound to find similarities in terms of freewheeling plotting, and readers of Don Delillo are sure to enjoy Erickson’s wonderfully concise philosophizing. If those names don’t ring a bell, then simply read These Dreams of You for the provocative and well-crafted prose.
Examples:
“For months the new president is the only thing that makes Zan happy, the only thing that interrupts the billowing gloom of his life. At the moment it doesn’t matter if this is a delusion.”
“Am I a ghost? she wonders in her descent, following–into its labyrinth of tunnels and bridges, lined by high walls covered with moss–all the narrow, winding stone steps of her new abysmal city. Am I in an abyss of time, or one of space?”
“Driving into this light he would have the feeling that he seems to have more and more as he gets older–of the past seeping into the present and marked by the quality of a particular light when he turns a bend of the road.”
More than anything else, These Dreams of You is one thing: necessary reading.
--Reviewed by Corey Pung, author of The Madness of Art: Short Stories and A Rapturous Occasion
August 1, 2020
Steve Erickson is the reason I wanted to go to Kansas. He's the only reason I'd like to visit L.A. He's part of the reason I want to visit Berlin, and now he has made me want to go to Addis Ababa. But only if those places are the alternate versions that appear in his novels (yes, with violent muggings and all).
For me, there's the canon of Erickson that is pre-me-knowing-it-existed, and then there's the post-me-knowing-he-existed publications. I feel like the latter are more grounded in real world things, like the world got so weird that there was no need to make up stuff anymore. I can't tell whether the shift in my enjoyment of these novels has to do with me losing the fervor of a teenager who just discovered something that really spoke to her, or due to something in the writing itself. It's still enjoyment, but a different kind. Is there less mysticism in the plot? Or am I a less mystical person.
More than the rest of his work, this has a self-contained feel, and the story unspools like a cassette tape tangling itself up, and then spools itself back again in a way that's satisfying, even if the characters don't get everything to come out exactly okay. Erickson writes coincidental despair better than anyone - two people meaning to find each other missing each other by just a hair, making just the wrong choices, or being stuck in the wrong flow of time. He piles terrible adult problems onto Zan until I felt he was really a Job-like character. The tension was palpable.
For me, there's the canon of Erickson that is pre-me-knowing-it-existed, and then there's the post-me-knowing-he-existed publications. I feel like the latter are more grounded in real world things, like the world got so weird that there was no need to make up stuff anymore. I can't tell whether the shift in my enjoyment of these novels has to do with me losing the fervor of a teenager who just discovered something that really spoke to her, or due to something in the writing itself. It's still enjoyment, but a different kind. Is there less mysticism in the plot? Or am I a less mystical person.
More than the rest of his work, this has a self-contained feel, and the story unspools like a cassette tape tangling itself up, and then spools itself back again in a way that's satisfying, even if the characters don't get everything to come out exactly okay. Erickson writes coincidental despair better than anyone - two people meaning to find each other missing each other by just a hair, making just the wrong choices, or being stuck in the wrong flow of time. He piles terrible adult problems onto Zan until I felt he was really a Job-like character. The tension was palpable.
March 17, 2012
frustrating! the writing is often gorgeous, the plot is swirling and complex, and the book... largely annoying. on paper everything seems like it should be right down my alley, enough so that i keep returning despite continuing frustration. here are the problems i've had with erickson here and before - he builds small novels out of big stories, where everything winds together too close, too narrow; he draws in history and historical characters but the never feel more than a little bit human; his big themes feel superficial, hand-waved.
in this story, the moral dilemma is that of a white man adopting an ethiopian child. which is also the burden of slave-owners guilt carried by white americans leading into the election of barack obama as president. which is then wrapped back to the presidential campaign of robert kennedy tied to the berlin years of david bowie. plus a failed attempt to pre-write ulysses and an 'aesthetic of coincidence' that might be exactly what i dislike about erickson's writing.
i've heard high praise of this novel from people i trust, but personally i did not find the experience very rewarding. on the other hand rather than feeling indifferent or bored, i feel actively and perhaps angrily critical - that could be a certain measure of success.
in this story, the moral dilemma is that of a white man adopting an ethiopian child. which is also the burden of slave-owners guilt carried by white americans leading into the election of barack obama as president. which is then wrapped back to the presidential campaign of robert kennedy tied to the berlin years of david bowie. plus a failed attempt to pre-write ulysses and an 'aesthetic of coincidence' that might be exactly what i dislike about erickson's writing.
i've heard high praise of this novel from people i trust, but personally i did not find the experience very rewarding. on the other hand rather than feeling indifferent or bored, i feel actively and perhaps angrily critical - that could be a certain measure of success.
February 26, 2012
A typical family novel These Dreams of You is Not. It's more like a turbocharged, falling apart, break down, can-the-family-get-back-together-again kind of story. Or looking at it from another angle: can America get back together again?
My favorite quote:
"This is the occupational hazard of being of my country, the way one's identity becomes bound up with a landscape that manifests in its soil and psychitecture an idea, with a people still fighting over who they are because when nothing else is held in common but the idea then if the idea isn't held in common there's nothing left except the mystical name of the place that evokes something different for each person but which each person allows himself or herself to believe is the same thing evoked for every other person." (p. 264)
In the beginning of the novel Erickson says two times: This novel being not remotely autobiographical (p. 48, 49). However, Erickson and his wife Lori did in fact adopt an Ethiopian girl. Lori's art of stained glass butterfly wings was actually stolen. The old abandoned railway car that was turned into a bridge and crosses a creek is a common landmark in Topanga Canyon. These facts make me wonder how much more of These Dreams of You is not remotely autobiographical.
I really enjoyed reading These Dreams of You. Dialogue is balanced with Zan's philosophical musings. Allusions to Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jim Morrison, and a black Hawaiian with a swahili name are weaved into the story where past overlays present, family break-up parallels America's fracture, and causes the reader to ask: what is America?
My favorite quote:
"This is the occupational hazard of being of my country, the way one's identity becomes bound up with a landscape that manifests in its soil and psychitecture an idea, with a people still fighting over who they are because when nothing else is held in common but the idea then if the idea isn't held in common there's nothing left except the mystical name of the place that evokes something different for each person but which each person allows himself or herself to believe is the same thing evoked for every other person." (p. 264)
In the beginning of the novel Erickson says two times: This novel being not remotely autobiographical (p. 48, 49). However, Erickson and his wife Lori did in fact adopt an Ethiopian girl. Lori's art of stained glass butterfly wings was actually stolen. The old abandoned railway car that was turned into a bridge and crosses a creek is a common landmark in Topanga Canyon. These facts make me wonder how much more of These Dreams of You is not remotely autobiographical.
I really enjoyed reading These Dreams of You. Dialogue is balanced with Zan's philosophical musings. Allusions to Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jim Morrison, and a black Hawaiian with a swahili name are weaved into the story where past overlays present, family break-up parallels America's fracture, and causes the reader to ask: what is America?
February 3, 2012
However way you look at it, this is an excellent novel. It's biggest issue lies in the fact that it's not what I expected from Erickson.
It's Erickson on meandering cruise-control.
The ingredients are high-quality and parts of the book resemble the genius that is Steve Erickson but in the end it's one of his lesser novels. It's no Zeroville, Sea Came in at Midnight, or Days Between Stations.
I believe this is best framed under the concept of a journal/meditation of the condition of modern day America from a masterful voice.
It's Erickson on meandering cruise-control.
The ingredients are high-quality and parts of the book resemble the genius that is Steve Erickson but in the end it's one of his lesser novels. It's no Zeroville, Sea Came in at Midnight, or Days Between Stations.
I believe this is best framed under the concept of a journal/meditation of the condition of modern day America from a masterful voice.
July 25, 2012
Winding through reinterpretations,
perhaps almost perfect.
perhaps almost perfect.
March 5, 2012
I had just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog when I saw Steve Erickson’s Zeroville on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. I took a chance on the novel, on the Europa logo alone. It has been a few years, but I remember enjoying Zeroville except for the fact that my knowledge of early cinema and Hollywood stars was slightly less than up to par. With that as background, I approached “These Dreams of You” cautiously, hoping that the author gave me a few more recognizable signposts and that he managed to tackle issues of race and identity without the schmaltz so often associated with such issues by white authors.
For fans of James McBride’s The Color of Water, These Dreams of You will be a welcome read. I thoroughly enjoyed this truly surprising novel, from its story to its message, its characters all the way to the author’s unique writing style. Erickson’s work as a film critic for the LA Times must carry through to his novelistic endeavors—there are not chapters so much as vignettes of varying length. Some are a paragraph and some are much longer. One might think that this could create a lack of focus for the reader or issues with the pacing. One would be wrong. Like in Zeroville, Erickson weaves actual history into his novels. Bobby Kennedy and David Bowie figure heavily into this story. One might think that would come across as gimmicky. One would be wrong.
Admittedly, there were sections I read through with what I am sure was a mildly perplexed look on my face. The best way to describe it would be to say that when the plot took a turn I didn’t see it was the kind of frustrating that made me want to read on, not to put the book down. By the end, I was impressed with Erickson’s ability to merge his narratives and shift away from plot and towards philosophy. More important were his moving thoughts on the state of racial identity, conflict and the very core of our country. In a manner I have rarely seen among white men discussing race, Erickson quietly questions what any of us can do to erase or balance the scales against decades and centuries of abuse and discrimination without coming across as pious, pandering or hopeless.
“This is the problem, he reasons, with presidents who can’t be as big as the reasons they embody. A body can only hold reasons so big. Should the silencing of the song come to pass, not only will Zan be complicit in the loss of his own faith, he will be complicit for having faith in the first place. But without such faith, the country—this country in particular—is nothing. This is the occupational hazard of being my country, the way one’s identity manifests in its soil and psychitecture an idea, with a people still fighting over who they are because when nothing else is held in common but the idea then if the idea isn’t held in coming there’s nothing left except the mystical name of the place that evokes something different for each person but which each person allows himself or herself to believe is the thing evoked for every other person.” –p. 264
I won’t spoil the plot in detail for anyone, suffice to say that a family of 4 with an adopted Ethiopian daughter undertakes a journey to find the girl’s biological mother that literally changes their lives forever. The climate of our country’s politics and beliefs almost warrant this book being required reading for all adults with a desire to engage more honestly and more fully with their neighbors and their nation. If it does not make you think, you might not be in tune.
For fans of James McBride’s The Color of Water, These Dreams of You will be a welcome read. I thoroughly enjoyed this truly surprising novel, from its story to its message, its characters all the way to the author’s unique writing style. Erickson’s work as a film critic for the LA Times must carry through to his novelistic endeavors—there are not chapters so much as vignettes of varying length. Some are a paragraph and some are much longer. One might think that this could create a lack of focus for the reader or issues with the pacing. One would be wrong. Like in Zeroville, Erickson weaves actual history into his novels. Bobby Kennedy and David Bowie figure heavily into this story. One might think that would come across as gimmicky. One would be wrong.
Admittedly, there were sections I read through with what I am sure was a mildly perplexed look on my face. The best way to describe it would be to say that when the plot took a turn I didn’t see it was the kind of frustrating that made me want to read on, not to put the book down. By the end, I was impressed with Erickson’s ability to merge his narratives and shift away from plot and towards philosophy. More important were his moving thoughts on the state of racial identity, conflict and the very core of our country. In a manner I have rarely seen among white men discussing race, Erickson quietly questions what any of us can do to erase or balance the scales against decades and centuries of abuse and discrimination without coming across as pious, pandering or hopeless.
“This is the problem, he reasons, with presidents who can’t be as big as the reasons they embody. A body can only hold reasons so big. Should the silencing of the song come to pass, not only will Zan be complicit in the loss of his own faith, he will be complicit for having faith in the first place. But without such faith, the country—this country in particular—is nothing. This is the occupational hazard of being my country, the way one’s identity manifests in its soil and psychitecture an idea, with a people still fighting over who they are because when nothing else is held in common but the idea then if the idea isn’t held in coming there’s nothing left except the mystical name of the place that evokes something different for each person but which each person allows himself or herself to believe is the thing evoked for every other person.” –p. 264
I won’t spoil the plot in detail for anyone, suffice to say that a family of 4 with an adopted Ethiopian daughter undertakes a journey to find the girl’s biological mother that literally changes their lives forever. The climate of our country’s politics and beliefs almost warrant this book being required reading for all adults with a desire to engage more honestly and more fully with their neighbors and their nation. If it does not make you think, you might not be in tune.
July 12, 2017
A name that is as damaged as it is spellbinding -
Actually really enjoyed this book, even if the book's layout is just ANNOYING
Actually really enjoyed this book, even if the book's layout is just ANNOYING
March 23, 2013
[Disclaimer: I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway.]
Wow. Just wow. I seriously want to pick up more of Mr. Erickson's works now. Are they all this intriguing? There were times I had to stop, reread a passage, and savor it before continuing. It was some of the best fiction I've read in some time.
The formatting of this novel threw me off at first. There are no defined chapters. It's very stream-of-consciousness. You would think this would make it easier to find a stopping point if you have to put the book down, but it was quite the opposite! After chewing through this one in a mere three sittings (that may be a record for me), I find myself balking at the idea of going back to a traditionally-laid out book. Chalk it up as one more selling point for this author/publisher.
To the meat of the book: The racial card is an easy one to trigger emotions, but Erickson reexamines the perceptions of race and nationality and discovery of self from multiple points of view and points in time. It's evocative. It's visceral. You can damn near HEAR the musical descriptors. And the way he spins a public figure into the tale, only offering clues to be picked up via context, is nothing short of masterful.
Anyone looking for a political message in this will find one. (Really, that's just the way of it if you're already predisposed to dislike something.) But if you're picking it up to enjoy a good read, chances are - regardless of your personal slant - that you'll walk away being charmed by some awesome storytelling with a flavor of outsider reporting (think: BBC).
The overall story is wrapped in a layer of "real" problems, which makes it palatable to the everyday reader (and nerve-wracking for me) all at once. And you know what? The fact that there are still a few loose ends, aka "mysteries" - as opposed to "secrets" - at the end doesn't bother me. I don't have to make up endings or give certain characters that "happily ever after". Granted, this starts out with characters looking for closure, but in the end, the most important objective is met and the rest is enveloped in profound prose.
Good on you, sir. This is one that will not be joining the giveaway stack.
Wow. Just wow. I seriously want to pick up more of Mr. Erickson's works now. Are they all this intriguing? There were times I had to stop, reread a passage, and savor it before continuing. It was some of the best fiction I've read in some time.
The formatting of this novel threw me off at first. There are no defined chapters. It's very stream-of-consciousness. You would think this would make it easier to find a stopping point if you have to put the book down, but it was quite the opposite! After chewing through this one in a mere three sittings (that may be a record for me), I find myself balking at the idea of going back to a traditionally-laid out book. Chalk it up as one more selling point for this author/publisher.
To the meat of the book: The racial card is an easy one to trigger emotions, but Erickson reexamines the perceptions of race and nationality and discovery of self from multiple points of view and points in time. It's evocative. It's visceral. You can damn near HEAR the musical descriptors. And the way he spins a public figure into the tale, only offering clues to be picked up via context, is nothing short of masterful.
Anyone looking for a political message in this will find one. (Really, that's just the way of it if you're already predisposed to dislike something.) But if you're picking it up to enjoy a good read, chances are - regardless of your personal slant - that you'll walk away being charmed by some awesome storytelling with a flavor of outsider reporting (think: BBC).
The overall story is wrapped in a layer of "real" problems, which makes it palatable to the everyday reader (and nerve-wracking for me) all at once. And you know what? The fact that there are still a few loose ends, aka "mysteries" - as opposed to "secrets" - at the end doesn't bother me. I don't have to make up endings or give certain characters that "happily ever after". Granted, this starts out with characters looking for closure, but in the end, the most important objective is met and the rest is enveloped in profound prose.
Good on you, sir. This is one that will not be joining the giveaway stack.
February 12, 2013
I have always been a big fan of Steve Erickson's writing but I find his latest book underwhelming to say the least. As always with Erickson this is an easy read, taking you along at high speed through the pages. But the content of the writing is less rewarding to me than in his previous novels. Where his prose used to be delightfully weird and forceful, in this novel at times it is downright mushy ("and there against the light of the outer hall are two silhouettes that need no light other than the one in her heart").
The thoughts (and ranting) about what it means to be an American are mostly lost on me (I'm European). In general, his (or his protaganist's) views on what it is to be a nation seem to me to be shallow and sentimental. There has been much profound thinking on the subject of the nation state. This is not profound.
Being European, what struck me was the underlying arrogance of this novel. The musings on the old world and the new (in itself a tired cliché) and the dream that is 'america' (his spelling) relegate us Europeans to the world of the 'have-beens'. Well, I can assure you that our culture is as vibrant as ever.
This arrogance is epitomized in the discussion about whether exposure to sexual material can be torture. The main character is completely unable to understand that people can actually be tortured by this and makes fun of the very concept. Arrogance indeed!
The best thing I can say about this book is that I read it to the end and took the trouble to write this review, which must mean something. Hence the two stars.
The thoughts (and ranting) about what it means to be an American are mostly lost on me (I'm European). In general, his (or his protaganist's) views on what it is to be a nation seem to me to be shallow and sentimental. There has been much profound thinking on the subject of the nation state. This is not profound.
Being European, what struck me was the underlying arrogance of this novel. The musings on the old world and the new (in itself a tired cliché) and the dream that is 'america' (his spelling) relegate us Europeans to the world of the 'have-beens'. Well, I can assure you that our culture is as vibrant as ever.
This arrogance is epitomized in the discussion about whether exposure to sexual material can be torture. The main character is completely unable to understand that people can actually be tortured by this and makes fun of the very concept. Arrogance indeed!
The best thing I can say about this book is that I read it to the end and took the trouble to write this review, which must mean something. Hence the two stars.
August 22, 2013
This novel has ruined all the books I've tried to read following the last word on the last page of These Dreams of You.
It's been two months since I've finished it and I still can't get it out of my mind. I must think about this book, the characters, the themes, the emotions about once a day, which is remarkable. I cannot think of another novel that has gripped me so vehemently in the last decade of reading.
I typically do not read any reviews, plot overviews, or cover praise plastered on or within books before reading, but I could not help but consider the one and only praise quotation shown on the front cover, from Susan Straight: "I am astonished at the emotions this book let flood through my head and heart." I kept coming back to this statement as I read through These Dreams of You; at the end, I believe that this is absolutely the most perfect, well stated quotation explaining what this book should (and will) do to its reader.
It's been two months since I've finished it and I still can't get it out of my mind. I must think about this book, the characters, the themes, the emotions about once a day, which is remarkable. I cannot think of another novel that has gripped me so vehemently in the last decade of reading.
I typically do not read any reviews, plot overviews, or cover praise plastered on or within books before reading, but I could not help but consider the one and only praise quotation shown on the front cover, from Susan Straight: "I am astonished at the emotions this book let flood through my head and heart." I kept coming back to this statement as I read through These Dreams of You; at the end, I believe that this is absolutely the most perfect, well stated quotation explaining what this book should (and will) do to its reader.
August 27, 2013
I really liked Zeroville - so much so that I feel that I was constantly judging These Dreams of You by the the high precedent that Zeroville set for me a Erickson books. This has so much potential, and the narrative style that I so enjoy from Erickson's work, but the end really fell apart for me. So many interesting things were going on right up until the last few sections, and then the end felt just felt flat to me. Really, this should probably be a 3.5, but I feel that even though it wasn't as strong as Zeroville, it's still better than so much other stuff out there -- and hey, as a huge Bowie fan I really appreciated the fan-boy level of knowledge it took to really enjoy every Bowie reference. This pretty much sums it up for me: Erickson's writing style never feels trite, but I almost laughed at the cheesiness of the last line of this book.
June 8, 2014
"Sometimes life calls for a catalytic instant." I needed one, and I got it.
For the first half, I felt like I was having cobwebs wrapped around my brain. Although I was enjoying it and was absorbed by the writing, I didn't think would go past four stars. Then at some point, I started to notice that the cobwebs intersected in strange places, that they weren't just round my brain anymore but everywhere else as well, that they left burning scratches in the places where they came together, and that they were probably a lot more solid than cobwebs. And, I started getting those jolts that mean 5 stars.
... Of course it also doesn't hurt that a certain dress-wearing redhead spaceman from Mars was in the picture as well.
For the first half, I felt like I was having cobwebs wrapped around my brain. Although I was enjoying it and was absorbed by the writing, I didn't think would go past four stars. Then at some point, I started to notice that the cobwebs intersected in strange places, that they weren't just round my brain anymore but everywhere else as well, that they left burning scratches in the places where they came together, and that they were probably a lot more solid than cobwebs. And, I started getting those jolts that mean 5 stars.
... Of course it also doesn't hurt that a certain dress-wearing redhead spaceman from Mars was in the picture as well.
October 2, 2014
This is a simple story, written in elegant and elaborate prose. It’s loaded with introspection and analysis. I was struck by the fact that every character in the book was so compelling that an entire book could be written about any one of them. The story moved along at a pace that was perfect for me. As a baby boomer I could identify with every theme, the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, politics of the 60’s and the 2000’s, music and musicians, the housing bubble and recession of the 2000’s, race relations today. Steve Erickson is an impressive writer. He draws very compelling characters and manages to elicit a range of emotions in the reader. I will definitely be taking a look at his other books.
March 12, 2012
You know how people say things like 'that book or film perfectly captured [insert era]' ? I feel like years from now we'll point to These Dreams of You as an example of how things really were here and now. Presents all the splintery confusion over our national identity in an exceptionally intelligent manner.
October 2, 2016
This guy is amazing. And, so luckily, I feel like we enjoy/care about all the same things. This one is full of exciting political and musical cameos that I couldn't believe meshed as well as they did. It's an ambitious novel and it might not completely live up to its ambition, but that's what makes it so interesting.
February 11, 2012
Steve Erickson interview (2/2/2012) on KCRW's Bookworm:
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/b...
Erickson's "Book Notes" music playlist for These Dreams of You:
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/a...
***
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/b...
Erickson's "Book Notes" music playlist for These Dreams of You:
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/a...
***
June 23, 2018
Erickson's writing is really engaging and interesting. There are elements here that remind me of Tours of the Black Clock, in particular the jumps in time and the role of major female character, and also of Shadowbahn, with the deep knowledge it exposes of the people he views as the heroes of rock and roll. Once again, there is the spectacle of a woman who is essentially raped and at least somewhat unknowingly impregnated by a famous person, where the woman just rolls with it without complaint or regret—to the point that it just a sort of fond weird memory that led to her having a child. The central story of a family struggling through the great recession is the best part of this book; regrettably, about 2/3 of the way through the story abruptly switches to a new narrator, time, and circumstance, and then the reader has to slog through a supporting character's background story before we return to the family. I almost stopped reading the book when the break came, because I was really enjoying the family's story and didn't care for the tangent story at all. Once the action returned to the family, I thought the story wrapped up well.
June 18, 2020
The novel, These Dreams of You by Steve Erickson, deals with the themes of race, writer's block, economic struggles, the inheritances of American politics, and adoption (particularly in the case where the child's backstory is a mystery).
David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Robert Kennedy, and Barack Obama are significant presences here as well. The POV character, Zan Nordhoc, is a writer who is bit pitiful at times, but that contributes to the humor and to my sympathy for him.
All I'll say is I enjoyed this book. Laughed out loud a few times. And was enthralled by the flashback narratives even though it was unclear for quite some time how they were related to the initial point of view of the character Zan.
David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Robert Kennedy, and Barack Obama are significant presences here as well. The POV character, Zan Nordhoc, is a writer who is bit pitiful at times, but that contributes to the humor and to my sympathy for him.
All I'll say is I enjoyed this book. Laughed out loud a few times. And was enthralled by the flashback narratives even though it was unclear for quite some time how they were related to the initial point of view of the character Zan.
June 23, 2017
Ever read your first book by an author and have the feeling that it warped your impression of him/her, and you might have felt differently if you'd read one of their more acclaimed works? This is the author of Zeroville, which I have a feeling I would've enjoyed more. This is one of those books where I appreciate the brilliance of it, the profundity of it, the wisdom of it, but did not particular enjoy the experience. It has important things to say about America, racism, family, the sick priorities of our culture...but so do other books.
April 23, 2022
Excellent. Surprising, rewarding, page turner in an unconventional way.
The other Erickson books I've read are fever dreams from the start. This book felt more restraint, initially, as it built its dream logic in a world that is more familiar than anything from his other books I've encountered.
The things that really floored me were the elements of historical fiction. The author's ability to inhabit and write dialogue for historical figures is really a delight.
This book flooded my brain with a wide range of emotions and I'll be thinking about it the rest of 2022.
The other Erickson books I've read are fever dreams from the start. This book felt more restraint, initially, as it built its dream logic in a world that is more familiar than anything from his other books I've encountered.
The things that really floored me were the elements of historical fiction. The author's ability to inhabit and write dialogue for historical figures is really a delight.
This book flooded my brain with a wide range of emotions and I'll be thinking about it the rest of 2022.
June 8, 2024
I have now read or attempted to read five of Erickson's books, two of which I didn't finish because he can be difficult. This book, however, was a bit more linear and easier to read, but still full of his surreal and dream-like imagery and musical points of reference. It's also the story of a family, which makes it relatable and down-to-earth (in his own way). The ending in particular is fierce in both its sense of loss and its (just a touch of) redemption. This is by far my favorite of his novels.
March 22, 2019
Set against the backdrop of Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency, ‘These Dreams of You’ by US author Steve Erickson intertwines an intricate and imaginative literary tapestry about family and identity. Although the novel initially opened with a narrative firmly anchored in realism, it quickly morphed into a fractal series of dumbfounding tessellations, which left me disengaged and overall let down. A real shame as the opening of the novel held so much promise.
October 13, 2017
Human, heartrending, mind bending read- Erickson's an oblivion artist- he conjures his work from time's entropic march and plays so effortlessly with structure- making a balloon animal of his life and history- I haven't read another contemporary who has more to say about the first two decades of our century.
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