Black Clock 21

by Steve Erickson (Editor), Ophelia Chong (Designer)

The End is near, and in the final, 21st issue of Black Clock the world ends with both a BANG and a whimper, depending who's telling the tale. Apocalypse planetary and personal, metaphoric and literary blows up twelve years of Black Clock in a dispatch by T. C. Boyle from after the plague, a legend by Nalo Hopkinson from before the deluge, Rick Moody's memoir of sexual limbo both secret and revealed, Susan Straight's chronicle of social chasms both greater and smaller than we think, a devastating consideration by Joanna Scott of loneliness and the bonds we think we've formed, one of the shortest short stories ever written by cosmic miniaturist Lydia Davis, and bookending contemplations by Jonathan Lethem and Richard Powers, who notes, "The thing we dread the most will make possible (again) those endless forms most beautiful.

214 pages, Paperback

Published March 29, 2016

About the author

Steve Erickson is a distinguished American novelist known for a visionary, dream-fueled style that blends European modernism with American pulp and postmodernism. Raised in Los Angeles, he studied film and political philosophy at UCLA, influences that permeate celebrated works such as Days Between Stations, Tours of the Black Clock, and Zeroville. Critics, including Greil Marcus, have labeled him "the only authentic American surrealist," placing him in the lineage of Pynchon and DeLillo. His most acclaimed novel, Shadowbahn, was hailed as a masterpiece even prior to its release and was later adapted for BBC Radio. A "writer’s writer," Erickson has published ten novels translated into over a dozen languages, consistently appearing on best-of-the-year lists for The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He is the recipient of the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters award. Erickson served for fourteen years as the founding editor of the journal Black Clock and is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside.