Amnesiascope: A Novel

by Steve Erickson

Erickson's funniest and most intensely confessional novel edges Los Angeles up against the next millennium and into a vortex of fire. The city is a surreal landscape overrun by abducted strippers, nomadic artists, reluctant pornographers, subversive newspaper columnists, alienated movie critics, teenage hookers afraid of the rain, and legendary filmmakers who may or may not exist. Steve Erickson is the author of ten novels and two works of nonfiction.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Surreal, Dystopia, Literature, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novels

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

Steve 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.

Reviews

[Ian Scuffling · Rating 4 out of 5]

As if Los Angeles wasn’t surreal enough, Steve Erickson, America’s master surrealist and surreally sublime novelist, has painted an even more haunted image of La-La-Land: one that’s either burning in flames or deluged in flooding rains. One that has discordant time zones zig-zagging across its topography in several-minute increments. And as the book’s flap jacket tells us, Amnesiascope is Erickson’s most autobiographical novel.

What is an autobiographic novel for a surrealist writer? Well, it’s one that’s preoccupied with lost loves, lost cities and homes, lost family, and a lost self. In this, Erickson’s fifth novel, we live inside the unnamed narrator as he recounts his most recent love, the sculptress he calls Viv, his job writing movie reviews for a local paper, an erotically-charged film he writes and co-produces with Viv, deluges and earthquakes, all-consuming fires—fires of flame, fires of passion, fires of rage—and of the artists sense of a lost self. The protagonist, a movie critic and novelist with a stutter, mirrors Erickson’s biography, but to what extent the crepuscular LA of Amnesiascope sheds light on the writer’s life would be a fool’s errand.

At times, this novel feels a bit like Erickson’s Dhalgren, where LA has been desolated by natural disasters (plural) and is all but abandoned by a cache of oddballs, weirdos, artists, and those types. Like its predecessor, strange sexual encounters happen freely and with unexpected reactions and reflections from the characters—some of these encounters are comic, for example, when the narrator early on is on a whirlwind tour of penetrating and pleasuring several mistresses with the sole goal of “saving” his release for the woman he truly wants to be with. It’s easy to read these moments of wild promiscuity through a lens of a youth’s budding sexuality, where passing-through lovers is merely a road to travel to our final and true love—for the narrator, it is Viv.

As a psychosexual romance unfolds, the narrator is also faced with coming to grips with the death of his father, and his mother’s endless grief. In what is probably some of the most emotionally charged writing I’ve ever seen in an Erickson novel; the protagonist has difficulty understanding his own acceptance of his father’s death measured against the burden it has forever left on his mother. At a particularly poignant moment as he’s driving across the desert of the west, he reflects on how his father didn’t “get” his writing, but how this didn’t really matter. How as sons, we are never “wholly of our parents” and so there will also be this strange divide among the genetic codes that inexorably connect us to them.

It's the last quarter of the novel where Amnesiascope really comes to life—where the first half of the book feels a bit phantasmagoric, even by Erickson standards, the bizarre nature of time and place melt away into some of the most impactful meditations you’ll find in one of his novels. Supreme, sublime, surreal, and so, so good. It now saddens me to only have one more novel of his to dig into.

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without question the least, the most ephemeral of the novels by Erickson that I've read—which means, Zeroville excluded, the lot of 'em. Allegedly the most autobiographical fiction he has penned, Amnesiascope presented the heretofore absent scenario of finding myself bored with select portions of the authorial vision, in particular his presentation of an apocalyptic Los Angeles basin ringed by concentric circles of quake/riot-spawned fire and its tethered curtain of ash. The time-zone shifts; the fading personality and absence/reemergence of dreams; the sinuous oneiric cinema and shadowy pursuits, the slinkily porous sexual liaisons; the reappearance of tropes and characters from his earlier (and stronger) novels; it was just all so tepidly handled. Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of this with the crisp and potent workout of Yes, with barely room for a breath in between, but I had to force myself to stay the course with this one—its mere two hundred and twenty-five pages notwithstanding—to make it through to the emotionally charged, but somehow flat conclusion. Almost every theme mulled over or shaped anew for Amnesiascope's melancholic meandering and dystopian snapshots was better presented and more cohesively structured and, most importantly, enigmatically compelling in the works that bookend this one. While undoubtedly more emotionally explorative than chaotically or surreally, Erickson nonetheless showed in Our Ecstatic Days that he can work such an angle with an assured flair. I'd suggest reading this one if you feel the need to complete the canon or are on a dystopian kick and need another (and unusual) fix—if you are new to Erickson, I would strongly suggest seeking elsewhere for your point of entry. Two-and-a-half stars, rounded up because I'm a big fan and giving the dreamy dude two-stars would break my heart.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are certain truisms about Steve Erickson's novels. First, if you like the first one you read, you'll probably like the rest. Characters will pass from one book to the next, wandering ghostlike through quasi-apocalyptic Los Angeles cityscapes. Sometimes the story is dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish (which is the case with _Amnesiascope_). After reading _Tours of the Black Clock_ I was happy to find I enjoyed this novel a bit more.

Note: try and read Erickson's books in order of publication if you can; certain things will make much more sense that way.

[Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Lots of whiny introspection, peppered by brief moments of sex. No plot to speak of. Unlikeable, self-absorbed narrator. Nowhere near the quality of Erickson's better books.

[Jon Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is the least of Erickson's books I've read. There's a lot of it that is definitely autobiographical - I remember reading his writing in the L.A. Weekly for many years, and that appears in this one. Still enjoyable (and sometimes funny), but far from revelatory.

[Eraserhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably closer to 8.5/10. Beautiful writing. Less plot than his other novels. More or less a meditation on art and sex. A few philosophical passages that maybe could be shortened---the same concepts elucidated elsewhere in better focus---but overall a great novel about love, loss, confidence (or lack thereof) and the strange impulse that drives us to create.

[tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spiritual bloodletting. Overlapping ruminations funneling core mysteries, confessing exorcisms of the self.

[SabCo T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a freebie with not much known about it other than ‘I was told it was really surreal and sci fi.’ I read the back [which had an entirely different synopsis than what it does now, btw] and was like ‘Sure, seems like it can’t be too bad, especially for a free book.’

…The book is nothing like it’s original synopsis, and it’s original cover only sort of leaned it into a sci-fi feel that wasn’t really there in the book at all. If it were a movie it would be like if the trailers only showed the sci-fi parts and then you get in to watch it and want your money back because it’s barely sci-fi at all.

I… don’t really know how to explain this book, really. Is it sci-fi? … yes…? In small parts I’d say. Is it surreal? For sure.

Honestly though, if it wasn’t for that I actually found myself loving the author’s style and prose, I’d have given it up about a quarter of the way in.

The story is in a sort of apocalyptic version of Los Angeles, the entire city having issues with above ground and underground fires since an event that the protagonist only refers to as ‘The Quake.’ The protag lives in a decrepit hotel owned by a sexual predator that, according to the protag is a ‘Palestinian Terrorist.’

[I very quickly learned/figured out that the book was written and published in the 90’s, as much of it is very cringey and very offensive.]

The protag is a self-loathing, pretentious, lying, sexual-abuser-apologist, washed-up novelist with a stutter; who also somehow also seems to think he’s god’s gift to women.

The book is incredibly frustrating because it gives you these little teases about this sci-fi-esque universe that is genuinely interesting, as well as odd situations and characters the protag knows/gets himself into, but the protagonist spends about 85% of the book musing about the past and the future [and nothing about the situation going on around him] and about 75% of that 85% is musing about previous relationships with women, and his various sexcapades.

As much as I can appreciate reading about a guy who goes out of his way to go down on women, I really would have preferred to know more about the universe than like huge chunks of the book learning about a woman who has her labia pierced with a cat-shaped ring made of jasper. [actually that character was pretty awesome as with her descriptions, but: my statement stands for all the other sexual scenes]

Multiple times when I considered quitting the book it was because of these long, drawn out sections of his sexual musings, but didn’t because damnit the author’s writing style was amazing.

A lot of interesting stuff goes on in the book that genuinely captured my intrigue, but I had to waft through a ton of boring, drawn out shit to get to it.

I was left mostly unsatisfied at the end, which may have been the point but I dunno. It just made me hold the book up and be like: ‘Why did I really read this, though?’

Unrelated note: It was a little sad because when I went to read it I found the smushed, mummified corpse of a spider who seemed to want to take a nap in the back of the book and then probably someone put it back on a bookshelf between other books where it met its untimely end.

I give Amnesiascope 2/5 Bathyspheres

“In the mornings I wake to someone somewhere in the building crying out ‘I’m tired of this life!’ with so much force it’s hard to believe he’s really dying, but with so much anguish it’s harder to believe he’s kidding.”

- - - - -

“But you know, when the heart is broken and the dream is gone, annihilation is delicious.”

- - - - -

“I know I’m back in L.A. because I recognize it by its women; they’re not like the women of anywhere else, they rampage in a way that’s endemic to Los Angeles, wild like the animals that flee a fire in the hills. They emerge from out of the city’s cinder heaps glistening with menstrual smoke.”

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jason foisted this upon me, and I have no idea what to think as yet. I will say that the cover and a few lines he read to me made me think of William Gibson... and given that, I'm excited to read more. Neuromancer is totally the shit.

Post-read:
Likely, one of the most emotionally-inspiring novels I have ever read. This likely reflects on me in a very negative light; however, this is probably one of the most honest books I've read in the last few years; and while I can relate, it doesn't mean I'm happy about it...

Emotionally cathartic as fuck. I felt like crying a few times, and then realized I already was. I'd blame it on the red wine I was drinking at the time, but I honestly can't. The novel struck a little too close to home; it has the barest traces of fantasy and post-apocalypticism to it, but the gist of it is sex, love, and failure... it's obvious why I can relate so well.

An amazing novel. I have to find more by Erickson, and soon.

[Fergus Nm · Rating 2 out of 5]

LA Gen X douchebag journo jerks off to his reflection - we get it dude, you fuck.
I'm sure there's some great Erickson stuff out there, but barring a few interesting motifs and moments, this isn't it.

[Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't notice this book was also by Steve Erickson, whose Rubicon Beach I read recently, but in hindsight it was obvious. There is a similar ethereality about both stories, despite this one more closely following a single main character in what I think is a chronological series of events.

The protagonist is a writer in a sort of dystopian L.A., who used to be an author but now writes film reviews for a local paper. Significant events in America are hinted at throughout the story, with buildings abandoned due to sea encroachment, constant wildfires, and a period of martial law (which the main character hardly noticed). None of these events are really the focus of the book, which is about the protagonist (I thought his name might be Michael, but skimming back through the book I see no mention of his even having a name). It's about 'Michael', his girlfriend, his work friends, alcohol, sex, and art.

As with Rubicon Beach events in the book don't seem to be connected at all at the start, but a sort of narrative forms over time. I think some of the pleasure in Erickson's books is finding the lonely threads you can hang on to and perhaps draw a story out from. Michael is on a sort of journey, which gathers pace throughout the book and ends in a rush of new places and characters in the final pages.

My favourite strand was a review of a film which Michael completely invents, yet which turns out to somehow be real. He can't believe it, but it starts appearing in random places everywhere. Amnesiascope is full of ideas like this, strange but compelling concepts which stick better in the mind for their lack of solid context or obvious meaning.

I don't think I liked Amnesiascope as much as Rubicon Beach, but I'm glad I read it, and once again stuck with it through the seeming aimlessness of the early sections. It's certainly a style of writing I haven't really encountered before, and doubt I'll encounter all that often again.

[Mikko Saari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Los Angeles on jälleen liekeissä. Steve Erickson kuvaa suosikkikaupunkiaan jälleen kerran maailmanlopun jälkeisissä tunnelmissa. Kaupungissa vaeltaa filmikritiikko ja kirjailija, joka muistuttaa varsin paljon kirjailijaa itseään. Nimetön päähenkilö asuu ränsistyneessä hotellissa, kaappaa strippareita, osallistuu pornoelokuvan tekemiseen ja kohtaa melkoisen gallerian värikkäitä hahmoja.

Juonella ei ole niin väliä, kuten osasinkin odottaa, mutta tunnelma on sentään kiehtova. Ericksonin parhaiden teosten (The Sea Came in at Midnight, Arc d’X) tasolle Amnesiascope ei yllä, koska kirjan kansien sulkeuduttua viimeisen kerran käteen ei jää mieleenpainuvia elämyksiä tai nerokasta kerrontaa. Hyvä, lukemisen arvoinen tarina, jossa oli mukavia yhtymäkohtia Ericksonin toisiin tarinoihin — Ericksonilla on tapana kierrättää henkilöitä ja asioita kirjasta toiseen ja niin käy nytkin.

Kirjassa on humoristiset puolensa ja miellyttävää surrealismia. Kannattaa silti aloittaa Ericksoniin tutustuminen muualta ja jos tyyli miellyttää, palata sitten tähän kirjaan, jolloin muualta tutut henkilöt tekevät kirjasta kiinnostavamman. (16.4.2010)

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steve Erickson stripped back. Kind of, don’t worry the surreal dreamscapes are still here but everything else aside from the subplots is relatively bare bones in structure compared to something like the mosaic of ‘Rubicon Beach’ or the odd reality melding of ‘Tours of the Black Clock’.
Whilst I’d say I would revisit it less than other works by him this is probably the novel where Erickson best sustains his wild imagination whilst retaining an effortless nature of balancing it with authenticity in what he strives for (something that is easy to mess up, particularly when tackling surrealism) and humour(although it doesn’t always land).

[Eric Susak · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a lot of this book that I dont fully understand. There is no tangible, cohesive plot under which all experiences and actions of the narrator find themselves housed. There are fires everywhere, sex in unusual places, and while there is no death, the feeling lingers. Even the narrator admits that writing doesn't always come from a place a knowledge. But as with writing, I'm compelled regardless of my ignorance. Some things must be said. Some things must be felt. And if we embarrass ourselves in the process of participating in life, well that's how it must be.

[Lighthouse watcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved that book, but not from the start...at first it seemed to me that it didn't come up to Erickson's level, but then it opened up, and I saw a man who suffers because gradually Los Angeles fire burns everyone and everything that brought him joy: his job, his father, his woman, his friends and his days. He is alone, but not old enough to feel like that, and he has some doubts about his own existence searching desperately for some proof that he had lived ...the book is soaking wet because of the rain of solitude that showered from its magical pages...

[Allan MacDonell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Futuristic dreamscape narratives of down-at-the-heel writers eking out a sex life in apocalyptic L.A. don’t stay futuristic for long, but the good ones, epitomized by Steve Erickson’s Amnesiascope, become all the more of-the-moment as time catches up with the events on their alternative horizons. A bit dated and better for it, like any true emotional history from a time that never happened.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hesitated between 2 and 3 stars for this book. No plot, no believable characters should have marked it down, but I found bits of it entertaining, particularly the set up of the possibly imaginary film that features from time to time through what might be called the narrative. I have been tempted to read Erickson before, I doubt I will be again, there are just too many better books still to read.

[Adam Burnett · Rating 2 out of 5]

A discomfortingly hopeful, lurid libido-stuffed Lynchian dystopian-noir lust letter to a fetishized Los Angeles in flames, seething with absurd toxic masculinity; explores the “inability to transcend memory” and morality as malaprop. Revulsion has its own values.

[Kim Zinkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A.

[Micah Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disconnected and surreal read, jumping in and out of coherence.

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a self indulgent load of crap. Easily the second worst book I've ever read, it was an exercise in will to finish it. A plotless load of drivel.

[Corey Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

this would make a killer Jean-Pierre Jeunet film

[Corina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it about 20% through this, and while it's not bad, the time-period for post-apocalypse is a bit dated and begins with a theme of objectifying of women that I don't particularly want to continue reading. There are some great one-liners, and I agree that there is quite a bit of humor, not all in bad taste, but I'll be moving on to other books.

That being said, it's a DnD I would consider revisiting, assuming I miraculously finished my reading list. (permission to laugh granted)

[Danny Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erickson's most autobiographical novel is also his angriest, his most overtly sexual, and his most sentimental. The brazenly pornographic lovemaking scenes might get tedious if they weren't rendered so beautifully dreamlike, and anyway each one is interrupted by Erickson's always-mesmerizing musings on love, writing, and, yet again, the meaning of America. The book can be very funny (particularly in one scene where Erickson's car is stolen right from under him). The writing takes on an especially poignant turn when the author turns his attention to the severe stutter he struggled with as a child, and the death of his father. On that latter point, here's a sample:
"even the child who comes from you is not ever wholly of you...there's always a part of the child that is always beyond the genes or shared soul of any father and mother. What my father did understand was that this was my dream, to write these books, and that I had held on to that dream long past the point any sensible person would have. He may have also envied my plan dumb luck that I always knew what my dream was, when I don't think he was ever sure what his was, until those last fifteen years when he realized it was the life he had had, the wife, the son, and that no other dream was likely to have been better. Maybe he suspected that, in knowing my dream, I also knew something else, something he didn't. What I know now is that he knew something I didn't, and haven't yet found the wisdom for."
Amnesiascope is a successful outing and works as a departure from Erickson's first four novels (which are really just one long masterpiece of American dreaming) even while referencing them often. This book mark's Erickson's mid-90s turn toward smaller, slighter language and books which are just as deadly, if not as grand in vision, as his first four horses of the apocalypse.

[PJ Who Once Was Peejay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish this novel was still in print (though you can buy it used) because it was one of those reading experiences that completely took me over. If you are looking for heavily plot-driven fiction, however, this may not be the book for you. Things do happen in Amnesiascope, conveyed through the narrator's hilarious, pathetic, decadent but conscience-ridden monologue, but this is a novel which is less about plot and much more about voice and place. Erickson's romantic-cynic narrator explores what's left of a millennial post-earthquake L.A. where strange, warped things exist without ever being quite fully explained, and the rest of the world goes on unchanged.

Stories involving a noir, Apocalyptic L.A. can sometimes be boring and cliched, but L.A.'s noir side works with bittersweet absurdity here. That's because it's written from within the heart of L.A., fully cognizant of the city's flaws, but with a crazy grief and a crazy love that goes deeper than the surface perceptions of this city often portrayed by the media. Amnesiascope (and L.A. and the narrator) is demented, cynical, and heartbreaking, but also a place where individuality flourishes; it is hallucinatory and real; erotic and kinky, but with a deep and struggling romanticism buried beneath the wreckage of the narrator's life and his ruined city. Because ultimately, this novel is a heroic call to keep living life on your own terms, to say the things that need to be said, to reinvent yourself every time a part of you is killed off, and most romantic of all, to keep trying to be free in a society that wants to box you up and define you by its own boring cliches.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book in 24 hours...
This was too good to be true and completely impossible to put down.
Let me start out by saying, if you are a fan of Kathe Koja, you should really check out Steve Erickson, and vice versa. You will thank me later, trust me!
They have a similar writing style, which I believe is referred to a "stream of consciousness". Erickson and Koja also have a secretive way of writing a GRITTY original story that begins to crawl around your brain like a venomous predator snake.
Please don't expect all your lose ends to be tied up into a pretty bow, also don't expect a superior plotline that has a start middle and end. No, perhaps there isn't an actual POINT to this book, this is more of a STYLE, a breath of fresh air, a glance at an illuminated world, you feel like you are submerging yourself in a dark tunnel and spit out into another planet.
THE IMAGERY!! The original characters that you just want to meet, and pick through their personal items and read their diaries and know them inside and out.
This is the sort of book that drops you flat on your back in the middle of a strange human's life and atmosphere... you feel naiive and perhaps a bit vulnerable and exposed to unknown elements. After you venture out a little bit and begin to feel comfortable, you are kicked right back into your NORMAL monotonous world.
Ok, the Joke is over, Lemme back in Erickson... :(

[Danger Kallisti · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn't as good as The Sea Came In At Midnight, but I still enjoyed it. I liked the idea of the post-earthquake post-apocalyptic LA, and the way he set that up. In fact, I pretty much liked everything, but I guess I was spoiled by how awesome the book was which I had just finished. This one dealt a little less with chaos and a lot more with the protagonist's emotional exploration, and I think I liked that the least. Still, the way that towards the end of his book, all evidence of his life began to systematically disappear was a poignant actualization of one's feelings on the death of the psyche without an accompanying physical death. In my entire life, I've only even met one other person I was certain truly knew what it was to die and then be reborn a different human in the same shell, dramatically and all at once. I’d certainly never read anyone who knew that feeling.

[Stephen Toman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread: confirms my suspicion that there is a connection between Roberto Bolano, David Keenan and Steve Erickson. This novel most of all with its hazy dreamlike exploration of art, creativity, masculinity and (lots of) sex. Unlike Erickson’s other novels, this one is told in third person by a narrator who may or may not be called “Steve Erickson”. Connections to all his other novels appear throughout. Less fragmented than this other books, and possibly less formally experimental, it starts slows but gathers pace as the apocalyptic rains and fires engulf LA. Erickson books are like classic Neil Young songs, where time is fluid, and Brando can chill with Pocahontas and white men are the threat.

[Jeff Russo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fell flat with me. Considerably less focused than Zeroville which was itself no laser beam. I liked the Zeroville guy but had no connection at all with this narrator (who is allegedly a much more autobiographical character, sorry Mr Erickson). There's nice hunks here but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

The "post-cataclysm" setting sometimes seems post-cataclysmic, and sometimes seems like a plain old regular world.

[Anton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, I tried very hard to like the book -- but after about a dozen attempts I just failed and was not able to finish it [and I just hate that]. This stream of consciousness approach just killed it for me. It is a fun, if weird, world setup but the characters are also not that interesting and frankly, don't inspire much caring for their fate.