Shadowbahn

by Steve Erickson

"A beautiful, moving, strange examination of apocalypse and rebirth." - Neil Gaiman

"Erickson has mobilized so much of what feels pressing and urgent about the fractured state of the country in a way that feels fresh and not entirely hopeless, if only because the exercise of art in opposition to complacent thought can never be hopeless." - New York Times Book Review

A chronicle of a weird road trip, a provocative work of alternative history, and a dazzling discography of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, encompassing artists from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holliday to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, SHADOWBAHN is a richly allusive meditation on the meaning of American identity and of America itself.

"Jaw-dropping," says Jonathan Lethem (Granta).

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Novels, Music, Audiobook, Magical Realism

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2017

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.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

…the music became inextricable from the paroxysms of his country. Did his country lead him to the music or did the music lead him to his country?

i was so excited a few months back to hear that steve erickson had a new book coming out, and so titillated by jonathan lethem's saying of it, in granta (wayyy back in december 2015):

It’s my best of the year, but you can’t read it yet...I’ve read every novel he’s ever written and I’ll still never know how he does it; Erickson’s not so much a writer’s writer as a tour-de-forcer’s tour-de-forcer.

BEST OF THE YEAR, and he was saying that more than a year before its publication date.

it's hard not to be intrigued by that.

and i gotta say - despite this being a great year for books already, this one is definitely at the top of my list, too. of course, since it's pubbing in 2017, who knows where it will end up, but i'm telling you - this is some fantastic erickson here.

this is my fifth book by him, and it's hitting all the things i love about his writing. his style is unmistakeable, and i have this visceral warm-bath response to it. i don't even know how to describe it - you just know it's him. it's not necessarily in the themes or words, although he does revisit a few touchpoints in his work - music, dread, liminal spaces, the "national dark," but there's something about his writing - its urgency/intensity/the weight of his ideas beneath a deceptively delicate sentence-flow, i was hooked immediately into this one and it reminded me of The Sea Came in at Midnight one of my all-time faves, and its sequel Our Ecstatic Days.

that's not to say i understand all of this one, because i don't. it's steeped in a musical scholarship far beyond my own, and he's very coy with the details, referring to certain songs only by their lyrics, or musicians by their biographical details. i recognized plenty of the details (including the nod to my beloved leonard cohen, although SRSLY, erickson?? you neglected the opportunity to quote tower of song in a book about a tower … of song?)

and there are times when he lost me with sentences requiring some brow-furrowed unpacking:

Neither has yet learned how time lays relentless siege to the denials of hearts drawn most inexorably to the truth.

but, as a writer-character in this book claims,

"Everything that every writer writes is about everything. I doubt there's ever been a single word written by any writer who's ever lived that wasn't about everything."

and that applies to erickson full-bore.

at its most basic, this book is about the sudden appearance, in 2021 south dakota, of the twin towers. and in those towers (or one of 'em, anyway) is the full-grown manifestation of elvis' stillborn twin brother jesse, negating the life and influence of elvis, causing an alt-history ripple to barrel through the american landscape, changing the entire shape of american music, impacting the world beyond its borders. spoiler alert - no elvis = no beatles.

it's a playful road trip novel full of juxtapositions, missed opportunities, america, rock and roll, racism, emptiness, music crit, social commentary, "supersonik", the role of luck in both fame and history, a mysterious secret highway connecting the american coasts, and the idea of identity: either of self, cultural, or national:

In the thirteen years since Zema came to America, she has never had any idea that having no idea who she is and having no idea where she belongs makes her more American than anyone.

it is, indeed, about everything.

in many ways it reminded me of A Visit from the Goon Squad, or delillo when he's on his game, but it's a book whose connections are implicit or suggested rather than spelled out, and a lot of it is hinged to the idea of twinnings - twin brothers, twin towers, twin appearances of these towers, alt-world "twin" versions of historical figures, surrogates commissioned to pass as a famous author across the world, this warhol portrait of elvis



twin playlists and songs paired up against each other in thematic face-offs:

…are these two songs infused with the spirit of a stillborn nation that wanders its own landscape trying to make sense of destiny, trying to make sense of survival, trying to make sense of which twin country is really left? Which is the corporal and which is the ectoplasm? Which is the reflected and which the reflection? Which is the sun and which is the shadow?*

he even floats the twinning in the casual descriptions of musicians:

…a Detroit ex-husband-wife team posing as brother and sister who could be twins.

and there's the constant flipping of the world we know to show the (stillborn) world that might have been.

This moment, like all of Jesse's moments, exists within the shadow of the other life never lived.

it's just brilliant all around.

and if you don't understand all of it, don't worry - you'll still enjoy it, and erickson's probably used to people getting lost in his books, if the writer character's comment is any indication:

People always joked (maybe) that he should give up writing books for mixing drinks, to which his father muttered, "Yeah, no one's ever said, I don't understand your martini."

an impressive achievement here. trust me, trust lethem, trust erickson's reputation - this is well worth your attention.



*bonus points for echoing TWO recurring themes: twins and stillborn.

*******************************

EEE! fastest netgalley approval ever! they could tell how badly i WANTED it!

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WHO IS PUBLISHING THIS AND DO I KNOW ANYONE WHO WORKS THERE AND CAN I PLEASE HAVE A GIMMIE??

come to my blog!

[Cosimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here come the planes

“Come se le Torri fossero ferme a un'eterna mezzanotte che ricorre in momenti diversi di ogni orologio individuale”.

Shadowbahn è un romanzo musicale e corale, potente e originale, è una storia di comparse e scomparse, di apparizioni e fantasmi, nella quale la dimensione del doppio e quella del sogno si mescolano alla narrazione del senso del reale, alla condivisione di un sentimento del tempo che è in sé già crisi di una cultura, perdita di fede in un'idea di umanità, vortice silenzioso nella circolarità della conoscenza. ”Le Torri Gemelle sono appena apparse nel South Dakota”, scrive in sospensione Erickson, e colloca nel deserto delle mesas e delle colline rocciose la folla che cerca il pezzo mancante del puzzle, riunita tra sopravvivenza e oblio: ciò che stanno aspettando è che le torri scompaiano. La musica è una protagonista del testo, con gli artisti e le canzoni, le melodie e le parole leggere. La strada perduta e segreta attraversa la storia alternativa dell'America, le tante storie possibili, diverse e sacre e nascoste dietro a quella apparente del pensiero riconosciuto. Autori competenti hanno sottolineato l'ipertestualità di questo oggetto narrativo, nel quale la musica diventa un paesaggio, un'atmosfera, una dimensione parallela. Personaggi frammentati nel corpo del testo sono numerosi e singolari: tra questi, uno scrittore incorporeo e immaginario, che lascia in eredità ai figli, Parker e Zema, uno bianco e l'altra nera, una selezione di tracce. Così i figli corrono per le strade confluenti e sovrapposte, raggiungendo il simbolo del Crollo, che è lutto e mancanza, abbandono e continuazione, inizio e dipartita, con un finale destinato a nascere e rinascere, senza pausa. Siamo in un sistema di riferimento che si fonda sul negativo: i territori che abitiamo sono la Disunione, la Frattura. In un futuro dissimile dal nostro, gioca e si muove al centro della scena il gemello di Presley, Jesse, l'alter ego del Re, sempre fuori tono, che stravolge nel caso gli eventi iconici e intessuti di ombre del secolo passato e riafferma negli atti una genesi popolare collettiva, incarnata nella tradizione del cantare tra indiani e schiavi afroamericani (ricordando dove si trovano le radici), che a sua volta ridisegna il presente possibile di un mondo ancora carico di memoria e di espressione. È un romanzo contro i fatti, che rivela in profondità la dissociazione attuale tra ordine e disordine, egoismo e dialogo, moltitudine e nostalgia. Sempre cercando di rimettere insieme le dissonanti e poetiche note di quell'armonia disintegrata.

“Verso la fine, si è reso conto che nella sua vita le cose scompaiono sempre nel nulla, prima che la vita stessa cominci a sparire: tutti quegli occhiali per vedere le cose, tutte quelle cuffie per sentire le cose, i portafogli per identificarsi, tutti quegli strumenti dell'esperienza che si è applicato addosso o stringe fra le mani e sono evidentemente scomparsi, evidentemente sfuggiti a dita occhi orecchie, alla memoria, a cui ha affidato le cose che – grazie a quegli strumenti – pensa di aver imparato”.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a brilliant collage of short narratives on America as ephemeral dreamscape and one man’s attempt to envision and incarnate its essence by songscape. The structure of the assembly mostly involves the twining of three strands connected by interfaces with the crystalizing event of the 9/11 devastation. The sudden appearance of the Twin Towers in the Badlands in a near future 20 years after 9/11 captures the attention of millions. The buildings are empty except for Jesse Presley, who emerges very confused in a parallel universe where he was the stillborn twin of Elvis instead of the vice versa we experience. Everyone hears music around the Towers, but each hears something different. Among those who visit are a brother and sister driving across country to seek reconciliation with their father, the second thread to that of Jesse’s adventures. The father has sent the siblings, his white son Parker and adopted daughter Sheba from Ethiopia, recordings of a twin set of playlists to inspire them on their journey. Notes for each pair of songs make up the third major set of narrative pieces.

Soon it becomes apparent that things are different in this world, aside from it being 2021 and the transtemporal visitation by the Twin Towers. The U.S. now includes nations of Union and Disunion. John Kennedy never became president and was assassinated. But this is not really an alternative history fantasy or sci fi portrayal of how parallel universes might operate. The absurd premise of the plot context should not put off prospective readers. One should take them as a poetic metaphorical way to explore the vacuum of the American Dream in this century and a look to music as the medium to find our way. In this light, all the short episodes of narrative, usually 1-2 pages, make for a fun and spritely ride. The play of twin-ness makes for a lively uber-theme: twin towers, twins, siblings, paired playlists, and flip sides of 45 singles, not to mention the dual universes, dual nations, white and black races, and lots of mirroring, reflections, and shadows.
Most readers will have knowledge of only a small fraction of the music referred to, but the father’s assessment of song pairs in his list is eloquently elaborated and comprehensible without direct knowledge. I felt I was getting some significant glimpses as to how a song is so embedded in the culture at a particular time and place as to embody both the travails of the past within the present and hopes, ambitions, and projections for the future. I loved these pieces for the way they connect disparate music and make reflections on how the songs both capture and predict the travails and aspirations of the American people.

For example, here is the shortest entry for song notes:
“A Change is Gonna Come” and “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”
The first song because any national discography that excludes it invalidates itself, and the second because when the singer sings, “As I walk this land of broken dreams,” it becomes clear that the thing breaking his heart is the very land itself that he walks.

As another example, this excerpt pairs a song of Duke Ellington with that of Mile Davis
“Black and Tan Fantasy” is part witty funeral march interspersed with a twilit summer stroll down Lenox Avenue, as though the body, on its way to an eternal resting place in a Harlem cemetery, lets loose its spirit for one last jaunt around the neighborhood. …The deep Harlem grave is a portal to forty years later, when a St. Louis dentist’s son with a horn leads an expedition to the end of African exile …the exodus not from slavery to freedom, as in the Old Testament, but the other way around. “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down” isn’t just three centuries of a people’s history in fourteen musical minutes marked by wail, smolder, outburst, and flying-dutchman phantasmatoons adrift on the shoals of reef-smashed chords, it’s the response from the damned America to the call of that America that might still be redeemed in “Black and Tan Fantasy,” as the spirit of America takes off—from its body on its way to being interred—for one last jaunt around all the possibilities that the country once imagined for itself, even as those possibilities were betrayed before the country began. As well, running down the voodoo, the horn player (a man of no small ego …) now pursues and sets to music his own oblivion, the sound of his own nothingness, the sound of something beyond burial. [The piece continues with a distillation of how Jimmie Hendrix is intermediary between the two with songs that shadow both]

The purpose of the siblings’ father in creating a national playlist is to somehow address how “wealth and power is the only American idea left.”:
If the evil of the attacks on that September morning could be set aside, and of course it could not, nothing better presented America with the opportunity to reimagine itself. This was at once an opportunity at once botched and fulfilled, with, on the one hand, a war of worse faith than anything the country has done in a hundred years, and be the election on the other hand of a man the color of African orphans—all followed by hope’s collapse.

Now that is something I can get on board with. If it’s going to be a mindtrip on the order of Pynchon or Delillo, it helps the pleasure meter if there are some graspable and relevant themes, fun along the way, and that it’s not a megabook. As it gets harder and harder to have pride in America as a political identity, it’s refreshing to hope in its continued nurturing of wonderful music as a way we might find an identity within the cosmic map.

I refrain from saying anything about the engaging missions of Jesse and the Parker/Sheba siblings. But they do travel a lot and sweep you along somewhere in the lanes between “On the Road” and “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” Sheba reflects at one point near the Dakotas that:

…there have been no exits on the Shadowbahn that hurtles them onward through the shadowcountry and through the shadowcentury.

To whet your interest further I can say there is an intriguing puzzle about a song which warns of danger from planes in NYC before 9/11 and its connection to Elvis and the song “Oh Shenandoah.” The education about that song was a delight in itself, as it has enough multicultural adaptations, from a French trader love song to his Indian bride to a black spiritual version (check out Robeson’s take on YouTube), that makes a perfect national song. I plan in the future to listen to more songs from the playlists, which I see is available on Rhapsody under the titles Shadowbahn and Shadowbohn2 (as well as Spotify). The writer Fiona Maazel in her review found a lot of satisfaction from exploring the songs (New York Times, Feb. 10, 2017). The trouble is that we often don’t know the singer or performance is being referred to (e.g. “Brokenhearted” mentioned above) and the playlist may undergo changes as time goes on. Slippery when wet it seems.

I think a key factor is whether this book is for you is how well you tolerate play with elements of synchronicity. For me, I need some vehicle to deal with the potency of 9/11 in terms of impact. Such an out-of-the blue to our sensibility of safety and integrity and awful in the escalation of death through the wars it spawned and growth of xeno- and Islamophobia. The events is worthy of an allegorical warping of space-time. At the same time a successful attack seems so desirable to our many enemies and thus so predictable. So much chance in its success, and yet almost miraculous to the totality of the Tower’s destruction from a strike up in the sky. In the absence of a faith in God, sometimes I can’t help drifting into some sense of everything being connected to everything and peek into my mental closet of inadequate knowledge of quantum physics. Books like “Crying Lot of 49” or “Underworld” prey on that hunger to look for lessons in reality. I know it’s chance, but I still feel eerie to see the plane flying near the Twin Towers in this cover of Delillo’s book published in 1997:

[Deborah Ross]

Premise: the Twin Towers mysteriously appear on the Badlands of South Dakota, from them comes a stream of music, and everyone hears a different song. Isn’t that a cool idea? I thought so when I requested a review copy. I imagined something of the order of a Tim Powers novel, with flights of wacky imagination resolving into a story that moves me, with characters I care about. Alas, it turned out that I was exactly the wrong reader for this book. Reviews, even “not my cup of tea” style, can help readers pick books they will love, so I offer the following:

At first, the story drew me in but midway through I grew frustrated. The music, as it were the uniting theme of all the various characters and adventures, turned out to be exactly the kind I have almost no knowledge of (I have heard of a few of the songs and recording artists but could not recognize them) or interest in (not even a passing nod to Chopin!), and the text was laced with long stream-of-consciousness diatribes that became ever more tedious. I found the characters unbelievable and pretentious. I kept hoping to find some saving point of sense, but it never appeared.

If you like Jonathan Lethem’s work (he praised this one highly), this might be the book for you. I imagine that if you love rock music, jazz, and blues, you will find special delights here. But if you, like me, prefer sympathetic characters and clear plot, logic, and emotional arcs, then you might want to pass on this one.

[Claudia]

Did not finish, gave up at 47%. Couldn’t get into it, although the premise is so interesting. However, the very short chapters – one on every page – the intertwined and disjointed threads made it hard for me to get into it or care about what’s going on.

The musical references – one every two or so sentences – were way too many for me. And Presley’s stillborn twin made no sense in the narrative.

Could be the fact that I’m not an American and maybe there are some nuances to it I didn’t get; even so, I really don’t care. If written fluent and with a coherent storyline, I think I would have liked it. As such, I’m glad I moved on.

[Bob Lopez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boy, I didn't like this book. The first...half, I'd say it was a strong 3 stars--towers, mystery, bro/sis driving toward it, their story was really compelling. Then at approximately the halfway point, the book...devolved? It became of series of semi-cohesive ideas and mad ramblings about music that came across like your local record seller on a meth high laying out ultimate mix without using names of artists or songs. Then it wrapped up. Frankly, a book only about brother and sister woulda been stronger than what happened here.

It's not beneath me to suggest that this book just wasn't for me, that I'm not the intended audience. I don't know who would be, but I definitely know it isn't me.

[Book Riot Community]

I am not even going to pretend the premise isn’t crazy. Twenty years after they fell, the Twin Towers reappear in South Dakota. They are as they were before 9/11…except they seem to be singing and they are also completely devoid of people, save one: Jesse Garon Presley, the twin brother of Elvis (who, in our reality, died at birth). I KNOW, RIGHT?! It’s bonkers. But more than just a bananapants premise, it’s a gorgeous novel of loss and alternate history deeply tied into American culture. I was transfixed.


Backlist bump: Zeroville by Steve Erickson (This has my favorite ending of any novel, ever.)



Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...

[Ian Mond · Rating 3 out of 5]

So what to make of Steve Erickson’s Shadowbahn. It’s already been described as the first post-Trump novel, which is a tad ironic given the President – not named – in Erickson’s near future (the book is set in 2021) is female and it’s under this female President (look, we know it’s Hillary) that America fractures into a “disunion”. Not even Erickson, for all the weirdness that occurs in Shadowbahn, could imagine a Trump Presidency. That said, he has no difficulty describing a broken America.

And that’s basically what this book about. The death of America – or at least the ideals and dreams that famously underpin the country. Erickson employs a multitude of metaphors to describe this. The Twin Towers reappear in South Dakota twenty years after they were destroyed. Music begins to vanish from radios, from CDs from people’s memories. On the 93rd floor of the newly minted Twin Towers, Jesse Presley – the still-born brother of Elvis – wakes up on a board table. And in an alternative history, JFK never gets the Presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention, losing it to Adlai Stevenson. Each ingredient, as disparate and strange as they are, all hit the same basic message. America is no longer the country, the dream, its people thought it was – assuming it ever stood for anything, assuming there was ever a consensus.

Initially, Erickson makes this point with burning hot prose and some wicked humour. The first third of the novel is terrific. Not just the appearance of the towers, but the reluctance of officials to take jurisdiction and responsibility. There’s this laugh out loud moment where the Attorney General forces a soon to be retired sheriff to enter the Towers.

" “I believe,” says the attorney general, with the faintest trace of a smile that the sheriff would love to stick a gun in, “the whole wide world has come to the conclusion that you’re the perfect person for this job.”

“I believe the whole wide world has no idea whatsoever who I am,” she answers.

“Exactly.”"

And I did love the sections set in an alternative history with JFK standing silent at the National Convention watching a political dynasty fade before his eyes.

But the book is also a nonsensical whirlwind of… I’m not sure what… featuring on the nose imagery such as the scorched grave of the twin-towers and a bewildering set-piece involving a Sonark (the audio equivalent of a lighthouse). If you’re obsessed with American music and particularly the work of Elvis – I’m not – there are passages here that are going to resonate like a well tuned something or other. Otherwise you either go along for the ride or give up. Because there’s very little actual story to hang your hat on and nothing even remotely linear about the plot. Yes, there are characters – Parker and Zema, a brother and sister who hold the only source of music that still exists in America – but they drop in and out of the novel on a whim. It’s a frustrating book. What it says about America, this idea that there never was a dream or set of ideals to aspire to, and even if there was it certainly died the day the Towers fell, is powerful – and yes very relevant in a political environment where Make America Great Again is the catch-phrase. But I’m not sure Erickson pulls it off. It feels like he’s struggling against the basic structure of a novel, at times happy to go back to a narrative, and other times ignoring what little story he’s created.

For all that though I admire Erickson’s ambition. To somehow sum up the rot at the heart of American in just over 60,000 words. If his acknowledgements are anything to go by this wasn’t an easy book to sell (not shocked at all) but I’m glad that a publisher took a punt with it. Because while this is a befuddling novel, one that goes on tangents galore, there’s something exciting about an author writing without any net. Maybe if I loved music more, or gave more of a crap for Elvis, this book might have been a greater success. As it is, it’s a failed but fascinating experiment.

[Ian Scuffling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serving as a meta-text on the American 21st century, Erickson severs the country into Union and Disunion, into alternate history and future, into the rich history of song that's constantly performed over and over. And drenched in his iconic, crepuscular prose, the dystopic vision he paints is rendered into subtle beauty where metaphor is the guiding principal for understanding everything.

In fact, when the writer-character in the novel says that "Everything that every writer writes is about everything," you get the impression he means that in every single moment in history has within it the history of everything that precedes and succeeds it. This is especially drawn out in Jesse Presley's plotline, which envisions a world wherein Elvis was stillborn and Jesse survives (without the voice of his younger brother), altering the course of American history is shattered into a shadow of what we know to be our reality (though, it too, is shattered). Causality is determinedly unclear in Erickson's alternate history, but in this shadow-world the Towers still came down on 9/11, but appear here again as a reflector to the populous now existing in disunion (states and even cities secede from one another) a mere 20 years after the moment the towers fell.

The imagery is stark, and it's clear to see where Erickson's politics lie in this divided nation (the one that exists in this reality, the one in which you live if you're currently reading this), but never have I seen the fall of the towers executed into such a sophisticated and complex metaphor for not just contemporary life in America, but as a breach of all of American history.

In the past 15+ years since their collapse, many have put their hat in the ring trying to ensnare the moment in a way that respects the history while making metaphor that extends to the existential. From DeLillo's mediocre Falling Man to Pynchon's better-than-given-credit-for Bleeding Edge, Jess Walter's clever and alarming take in The Zero, Colum McCann's NBR-winning Let the Great World Spin and many, many more, it's Erickson's beautiful tome that will come out on top in this burgeoning American Genre.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steve Erickson's Shadowbahn is deliciously out there. You won't read anything else like it this year. From its startling premise to its beautiful writing, it's a truly engaging read. It's thought-provoking and strange and a wild ride. I thought it was great.

Shadowbahn is set in 2021. Twenty years after 9/11, the Twin Towers have reappeared in the Badlands of South Dakota. People from around the world begin flocking to see this impossible phenomenon. The Towers are emitting music, and everyone hears a different song. Brother and sister, Parker and Zema, are on their way from Los Angeles to Michigan to visit their mother, and they decide to go out of their way to see the Towers.

High up in one of the Towers, a grownup Jesse Presley—Elvis's stillborn brother—wakes up. Jesse constantly hears the music of his brother in his head. And he has dreams of an America where he survived in place of his brother.

Sounds crazy right? Somehow Erickson makes it all work. The chapters are short, so that makes Shadowbahn a fast read. At the same time, I found myself savoring this book, rereading passages because they were so beautiful or profound. There are great characterizations, especially of Parker and Zema and their family, and of Jesse Presley. The narrative is rich with music. There's the music coming from the Towers, and then there's the playlist of their dad's that Parker and Zema listen to on their road trip. This playlist is accompanied by notes on the selections that their father compiled, which are interspersed throughout the narrative. The short chapters and musical analysis are also joined by articles throughout. It's a good mix of mediums to tell this story.

Shadowbahn is perfect for music lovers and Elvis lovers. It presents a cool alternate history. How different would the world be if Elvis hadn't survived at birth? (Very different.) With the major revelations that come at the end, Erickson wraps things up masterfully. There is a huge payoff. This is a wholly unique work that is refreshing in its weirdness and speculation. Highly recommended if you want to expand your literary horizons.

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There's music coming out of me that's not mine. There's singing in my head that's not me."

This was my first exposure to Steve Erickson, astonishing given that the author has nine previous novels and has won both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. I'm not so enamored of his method that I'll immediately hunt down the other nine novels, but Shadowbahn represents such an odd representation of 21st-century America, I'll be trying to figure out what his visions mean for a long, long time.

Many reviews have focused on the explicit details of the novel - how the Twin Towers of Sept. 11 have magically reappeared in the South Dakota Badlands in 2021, and will make a habit of reappearing in random locations every 20 years henceforth. How the stillborn twin brother of Elvis Presley has somehow taken the place of his brother, but become a member of the Warhol Factory rather than a rock and roll pioneer. How a brother and sister driving to Michigan have somehow become the central object of hatred of a fractured America dividing itself into Rupture zones - with rebellious citizens somehow convinced that the sister has somehow stolen the collective music of America merely by playing her father's playlists.

It's a dazzlingly strange story, all right, made stranger by the fact that some sections of the book could be shuffled into random positions with the resulting novel still as coherent as the novel before us. It's not just that Erickson provides us a nonlinear and dreamy narrative, it's that the book is less a narrative than a series of prose-poems, resembling the linked stories of solitary living on the Irish coast in Claire-Louise Bennett's Pond, for example, or resembling the odd, specific, and haunted essays of poet Mia Alvarado. Erickson has given us a definite dreamscape, as nothing stays the same for long. And since most sub-chapters last less than a page, leaving plenty of white space in the book's layout, the feeling that this is prose-poetry is reinforced.

Popular music is central to the book, but "popular" defined in odd ways. The overture and hit-single for the book is Laurie Anderson's "O Superman," given its prescient reference to planes arriving. Or maybe it's "Oh Shenandoah." Or a French chanson "O Souverain." Depends entirely on the dream you choose. The reviewer in The New York Times Book Review admitted to being a wrong target for the book because an obsessive focus on music did not inform the reviewer's daily life. I stopped dead in my tracks reading that admission. I had thought a love for books and literary pursuits necessarily implied a deep obsession with music obviously shared by Parker and Zema's father, and by Erickson himself. Since this is my natural state of being, no musical reference in the book was challenging to me, and I should have realized that not every MFA or rabid devourer of books was also a music wonk. But why should that not be so? And why should not every MFA be a lover of higher-order mathematics? Since music and math are the most highly perfected languages, it only stands to reason.... What's that tune, and where is it coming from?

It's tempting to give this book the highest possible ranking because of the experiments in perception (and music listening) Erickson wants us to make, yet sometimes his choices seem less than optimal. For example, he wants us to grasp the shadow-twin or doppelganger nature of the Hugh Everett many-worlds theory, how just a slight shift can make histories radically change. But why would he choose such trite and well-worn culture heroes as Elvis, JFK, and Andy Warhol to make his points? In his musical playlists, he's not afraid to throw in Brian Eno and Goldfrapp, so why not aim for something a little stranger than Valerie Solano and the Velvet Underground? I understand Erickson wants to bring shadow histories to extremely well-known culture heroes, but I think a slightly more obscure reference could have been found. (I'm always harping about why we must have yet another history of the battle of Gettysburg, when so many more interesting histories of James Garfield's assassination or Franklin Pierce's political movements could be written. Someone will inevitably answer that Gettysburg sells. But the historian should dive into the shadow corners of history to illuminate secret events, not seek to follow Bill O'Reilly into the massively popular realm of fake history.)

Erickson wants to preserve plenty of mysteries in his book, but we often don't get anything close to a clear sense of why the Towers keep reappearing, why music keeps vanishing, or where the shadow highways are supposed to lead. Yes, these are the kind of cryptic passages that can make a novel haunt us for months, but there often are too many gaps in the knowledge within Erickson's story.

The last 15 pages of this novel, corresponding to Tracks 24 and 25 of the Infinite Playlist, are a critical distillation of what Erickson wants to tell us. Even if he does not make his intent clear, we can clearly hear Laurie Anderson's voice in the background, "When justice is gone, there's always force. When force is gone, there's always mom.... here come the planes, they're American planes, made in America, so you'd better get ready...." We somehow were ready for Sept. 11, 2001 long before it took place, but we've somehow also never recovered. In the movie Arrival, based on Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life," it is clear in the non-linear wholistic cursive language of the aliens that they are telling us that we must abandon linear time to move forward, that the only way we become greater being is by "remembering forward," sacrificing a little of that imaginary free will to accept the totality of the trajectory of our lives and eventual death as one. Erickson makes veiled references to this abandonment of time, but ties it to the higher language of music, which is always there and never there, all at once. And all of it has deep ties to the continued racial divides in the nation.

In a more traditional vein, one can say that the ultimate book on race relations, music, and escapes from time's limitation is Richard Powers' magnum opus The Time of our Singing. Erickson's book is, by contrast, a brief and minimal, poetic volume. It has jumped out of the time constraints used by Powers. It does not always make optimal use of the prose-poem format, and it does not always make clear what the continuing ghost of Sept. 11 means, and what those songs are that remain stuck in our head. The book makes little attempt to explain what the shadowbahns really are, and where they might take us. But the music provided along those secret highways preceded our individual egos. It was there in the womb before we took our first breaths, and the soundtrack will continue after we leave. Erickson's book is a travel map and tour guide for those secret singing highways - not exhaustive or even very coherent, but a fine collection of poetry.

[Z.]

DNFed about a third of the way in.

I'm not sure how this book came to my attention—I'm not familiar with Erickson's other work—but it's been on my TBR since it came out in 2017 and was one I always looked forward to reading, despite my six-year delay. I love the basic premise: a perfect copy of the World Trade Center appears in the middle of the South Dakota Badlands for no discernible reason, leaving the characters to grapple with what it means. I'm a fan of the "bizarre element emerges without explanation in an otherwise mundane setting" subgenre (I don't think it's quite the same as magical realism, where the bizarre element is treated as unremarkable within the storyworld itself), and this seemed like it would be a standout example, with some intriguing thematic undercurrents.

The first 30 or so pages were hypnotic and suggestive in exactly the way I'd hoped, but the further Erickson stretches his idea and the more elements and characters he adds in to make it more conventionally novel-shaped, the more it starts to sag. (A dreamy concept like this almost always works best as a short story.) You'd expect some commentary on U.S. history and culture with such a setup, but Erickson just keeps throwing in heavyhanded signifiers of Americanness—the Twin Towers, Elvis Presley (his stillborn twin appears in one of the towers and becomes a POV character), Route 66, jazz and blues music—until it feels like he's ticking off a checklist instead of saying anything actually meaningful. There's even a half-baked post-apocalyptic component, a hallmark of early Trump-era fiction, with allusions to "The Rupture" and "Disunion" further complicating an already messy work. By the time Erickson introduces a Narratively Significant Playlist, a.k.a. a chance for the author to free-associate about some of his favorite songs, I couldn't do it anymore.

To make matters even worse, the characters are unconvincing and generic (the sheriff a few weeks from retirement, the scrappy teen siblings roadtripping to find themselves), and the frequent attempts to tackle race, while well-intended, are the absolute epitome of... well, White Guy Born in 1950 Attempts to Tackle Race. (How to give some depth to the white sheriff character? How about a flashback to a lynching she witnessed as a four-year-old!) Even the prose, which starts quite strong, can't help but devolve into esoteric rambling, so consciously loaded with Importance that it winds up in masturbation territory instead. ("I embark to ride the mystery train of Tuneless Shout, destined for aleatoric hinterwilds beyond where timbre chokes on the color of its own tone." Gag.) Jonathan Lethem has a blurb on my copy calling the novel "a tour-de-forcer's tour-de-force." If you're the type of person who self-identifies as a "tour-de-forcer," maybe you'll like this better than I did.

I don't trash books all that often, but this was especially disappointing because of the high hopes I'd put into it for so long. Fortunately this is a rare case in which another book does everything this one tries to do, and does it a thousand times more successfully too. That book was published one month after Shadowbahn. It's called White Tears and it's by Hari Kunzru. Forget this. Read that instead.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

“…come se Qualcuno stesse allestendo una dimostrazione cosmica dei limiti del razionale”

Ogni tanto uno dei libri di questo autore misconosciuto, inclassificabile, deliberatamente marginale, riesce, in base a criteri a me oscuri, ad attraversare le maglie della distribuzione e ad essere tradotto e pubblicato anche in Italia, immagino con una resa ben al di sotto delle aspettative, trattandosi di uno degli scrittori meno commerciali che io conosca. (Forse accade per confusione col più noto Steven Erikson, senza la C, autore di saghe hard fantasy…)

Shadowbahn ha un avvio folgorante che comincia da subito a mettere in campo icone, miti e fantasmi della storia, dello spettacolo e della cultura pop americana, ma lo fa ogni volta con uno slittamento, una deviazione più o meno marcata dalla realtà che conosciamo, fino a comporre un quadro via via più surreale che, volendo ricorrere a una classificazione, potrebbe con molta approssimazione annoverarsi nell’ambito delle distopie.

Tanto per esemplificare, abbiamo fra i protagonisti il gemello (nato morto nella nostra linea temporale…) di Elvis (nato morto nella linea temporale di Shadowbahn), che agisce al 93° piano di una delle Twin Towers ricomparse in condizioni di abbandono vent’anni dopo dal crollo, non già al centro di New York ma in una zona sperduta del South Dakota, la cui denominazione (le Badlands) è tutta un programma.

Da questo inizio rinuncio all’idea di fornire una traccia esauriente del succedersi della vicenda (vicenda?) articolata in capitoli brevissimi, uno per pagina, dove, in contrasto con un mondo dove all’improvviso è scomparsa ogni nota musicale, prende il sopravvento una marea di citazioni, mai esplicite ma riconoscibili dal titolo di una canzone o da un riferimento bio/discografico (raramente ho utilizzato Wikipedia con tanta frequenza…), da Duke Ellington a Jimi Hendrix, da Curtis Mayfield ad Harold Arlen, a Presley (vero o falso) su tutti, in un’interminabile onnicomprensiva playlist.

Lungo la quale, come suo solito, il buon Steve Erickson (mi raccomando la C) tende a farsi prendere la mano, trascinando il lettore in un labirinto di rimandi, un loop quasi senza uscita, un tantino estenuante pur nel fascino di un’operazione che abbandona il mondo della narrativa per diventare qualcosa di ipnotico e visionario, diciamo un’allucinata e quasi metafisica compilation che le mie limitate capacità psichiche non riescono a descrivere.

L’operazione mi parve più riuscita in “Zeroville” e forse in minor misura in “Arc d’X”, ma anche questa volta l’autore riesce a raggiungere picchi di suggestione che si imprimono in modo indelebile nell’immaginazione, procede per disordinato accumulo di materiali narrativi, musicali, storici, filosofici, con l’intento (riuscito) di farci smarrire qualsiasi traccia di ciò che si suol definire “trama”.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of Shadowbahn is a strange one; 20 years after 9/11 the Twin Towers appear in the badlands of South Dakota. It’s not a mirage, but the physical buildings, bereft of people and completely undamaged. The novel offers no direct explanation of how or why this occurred but rather its effect on time and on other people. One of those is Jesse Garon Presley, Elvis’s twin brother and whom, in our world, died at birth. Two others are Parker and his adopted black sister Zema who, in a reversal of the Great Migration of the 1930s, are driving from a ruined California to their mother’s house in Michigan.

At its core Shadowbahn grapples with the fate of America, whether it has reneged on its astonishing promise and turned its back on the future. The appearance of the Twin Towers signals some sort of reckoning with past and future. The time is the near future. America’s unity seems gone, the Midwest filled with forces of “Disunion.” A starless Old Glory flies in the territories of Disunion. For the world of Shadowbahn: “It’s a century that disputes and hates the dearth of patterns, that disavows and loathes a vacuum of digitalogic, as though Someone is putting on a cosmic demonstration of the limits of the rational.”

Music plays a crucial role in the novel. When the towers appear the gathered spectators begin to hear music in their heads, music they can’t stop hearing. The music is different for everyone. As they drive eastwards Parker and Zema listen to a playlist that their father, a one time DJ, assembled. Chapters reproduce the notes from his logbook, generally discussing two of the songs, their compositional and performance histories; “he has twin playlists of a hundred and ten songs, each drawn from a musical library of 2,996. Of course, as music’s Supreme Sequencer he has systemized the playlists precisely according to a rationale that’s evident to him if no one else: An example:tracks 03 and 04:“Wooly Bully” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” * simultaneously level mid-sixties answers to Time Magazine’s question: “Is God Dead?” “. . . having no way of knowing that time is a shadow-highway of successive roundabouts with After occasionally preceding Before, and that two responses five thousand miles apart already have been recorded within days of each other and within hours of the magazine hitting the newsstands. The first answer, a bilingual countdown (Uno! Dos! One two tres cuatro!) to American chaos by way of Texas (via Memphis), is: Who cares? The second, an atonal cosmic yowl recorded in a London studio—based in part on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and in part on the convulsions of the singer’s ego—with hybrid western/eastern percussion and a musique concrète sound design of loops and fragmented human voices, is: What does it matter? A leading cultural commentator of the time identifies the four musicians of the second song as “imaginary Americans,” America representing the source and fulfillment of their dreams and an idea big and rapacious enough to claim the musicians as Americans, in the same way that America claims anything it chooses to, including the demise of the divine. (emphasis added) *Wooly Bully, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, 1964’ Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles, 1966.

Meanwhile, Jesse Presley, the third side of this triangle, awakens on a boardroom table in the South Tower, and slowly begins to move forward on a cross country journey in a nation that never knew Elvis Presley. He meets a man who seems like Jack Kennedy and another who seems like John Lennon, only different. Eventually he leaves New York and heads west. "He knows that soon authorities will trace his trajectory of fire and follow. He heads toward a west that is the dreamer’s true north, where the desert comes looking for us and curls at the door, a wild animal made of our ashes; hijacking the sun halfway, Jesse leaves his shadow at the crossroad.”

Finally, a word about genre. One begins to wonder if it matters anymore. At least in the case of Shadowbahn one encounters a novel that partakes of literary postmodernism and with a fair slice of science fiction. I have not read any of Erickson’s other novels but glancing over plot summaries I sense a similar theme. Shadowbahn is a novel one can easily recommends to readers of Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson, even Stephen King. All that was missing for me was a link to Spotify playlists of Parker and Zema father’s Grand Sequencing. If the history of America is also a history of music, it is at least noteworthy that the second playlist ends with “Redemption Song.”

Update: There are two Shadowbahn Spotify playlists. Search for "Shadowbahn"

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent 9/11 novel, both in premise and execution. Probably the finest I've read, although Bleeding Edge still sits high on my TBR pile. Shadowbahn is absolutely bizarre and certainly strong enough to have me looking into Erickson's other works. I have a feeling I'll be checking out Zeroville soon enough. If that is as jam packed with deep insights into film as this one has into music (and American culture in general) Erickson will officially have a new fan.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shadowbahn is the kind of science-fiction novel where nothing is explained and you're often not sure exactly what's going on. The Twin Towers reappear in the Badlands of South Dakota, Elvis's still-born twin spins off a parallel universe where the Beatles never existed, music disappears, and some kids go on a road trip. The prose is sparse, echoing the empty stretches of American highway where most of its action takes place. The book is more about an experience and a feeling than a plot.

And that experience bit like having a bruise on your leg. Every so often you reach down to touch it and see if it still hurts. Yeah, it does. The novel deals with post-9/11, the illusion of a unified America and the role of pop music is fostering that illusion. Does is it hurt to remember the Twin Towers falling? Does it hurt to remember that the U.S. is divided geographically and psychically along lines of race and politics? Does it hurt to think that the pop music of the 20th century was the best we've ever been and even that's over now too? Yeah, it does.

[Lemar · Rating 5 out of 5]

What better bridge to help us explore the concept of parallel universes than an identical twin? In that context we are our own twin, living a life with echoes of what might have been. This novel creates gossamer fine veils through which these other possible worlds can be seen and, especially through music, heard. 20th century America, in full dayglo potential and missed opportunity is sifted and sounded, creating frequencies that set the reader vibrating.

[Tripp]

Plot? Yeah, Shadowbahn's got one, sort of. But that's not why you'd pick up this book, and if it is, you'd probably put it back down, quick. No, what it's got--and the real reason you'd choose to read it--is that it's got knockout writing in the service of something that feels important.

Erickson gathers together the USA's two original sins, neither ever adequately addressed by this country--the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans--along with the horror of 9/11 and the flickering hope of American music, however inadequate to the task of healing the latter might ultimately prove.

In the book, the WTC towers reappear in the South Dakota Badlands, described as "skywardly launched tombstones of a lakota mass grave." That should give you a sense of this book's tone and mood.

Plus, it has a soundtrack woven through its pages, and part of what makes this so absorbing is the identifying and tracking down of all the musicians and songs referenced. This is serious business.

Regarding one of those songs, I'll give the NYTBR's Fiona Maazel the final word, from her review of Shadowbahn. It's about a song I've been fascinated with ever since its release date:

Toward the end of the novel, the D.J. fixates on a lyric from (it turns out) Laurie Anderson's 1981 hit "O Superman": "Here come the planes, so you better--" He can't remember what comes next, which all but demands those of us unfamiliar with the song to go find out. Today, "O Superman" feels like eight and half minutes of despair regarding where we are as a country. It's impossible to hear "They're American planes. Made in America. Smoking, or nonsmoking?" without feeling a little sick to your stomach. More devastating, one of the voices in "O Superman" might well be the voice of America leaving its message: "This is the hand, the hand that takes"; meantime, in the background: ha ha ha ha ha. A ha that never stops until the song is over. The mockery, longing and disillusionment of this music are splashed all over "Shadowbahn." More than 30 years later, "O Superman" still feels apt.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Steve Erickson first came on the scenes I read all of his books, but then about 10 or so years ago I somehow lost track of him. His newest novel is a great return to form, and I'll have to go back and catch up on his backlist that I've missed. This is a crazy book, far-fetched in one respect, but couldn't be timelier in another. Called the first 'post-Trump' novel, it is both upsetting and oddly calming at the same time. No one else but Erickson could have conceived of it! Thanx to Netgalley for the ARC.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up for a song...

I picked up Shadowbahn once, shortly after its publication, then put it down again. The brief synopsis on its jacket put me off: Manhattan's Twin Towers, destroyed on September 11, 2001, inexplicably reappear in the Badlands of South Dakota some twenty years later? Too soon, too soon... I did not want to be reminded yet again of just how badly and how often we've stumbled since those planes were flown into those buildings.

But that was before I had read Steve Erickson's Zeroville, which was amazing. So when I ran across Shadowbahn again, I picked it up—and this time I held onto it. The book fell open in my hand, to a chapter near the middle which revolves (like a long-playing record, perhaps) around the truest music about 9/11 that yet exists, even though the song was written long before the fact.

Here come the planes
They're American planes,
Made in America
Smoking or non-smoking?
—from "O Superman (for Massenet)," on the album Big Science by Laurie Anderson

Shadowbahn's soundtrack is massive, actually—Erickson name-checks or quotes from dozens if not hundreds of individual songs, not all of which even exist in our own particular universe—but it's all tied together by that one song, released back in 1981. And so the reappearance of the Twin Towers, staggering as it is, becomes almost backdrop to the real story.

More than anything else, Shadowbahn is about the music.

'Cause when love is gone
there's always justice
And when justice is gone
there's always force
And when force is gone,
there's always Mom.
Hi, Mom!
—"O Superman"

One melodic line running through Shadowbahn concerns Paul and Zema, elder brother and younger sister, who are driving cross-country from L.A. to their mother's place in Michigan, in an old Toyota with their father's playlist going nonstop from the stereo. When they hear about the resurrected Towers in South Dakota, they decide to take a side trip to see them—which is not as easy as it might sound, since most of these former United States are now the Disunion—a collection of balkanized, breakaway states, each of which has its own borders to cross, its own rules to break.

"{...}In any case I've become a man of letters."
"Last refuge," Jack nods, "of the socially impotent."
—p.165

But then, Shadowbahn is also about a man who doesn't exist in our world, nor in Paul and Zema's, not until the Twin Towers come back: Jesse Garon Presley, the stillborn (in this universe) brother of one Elvis Aron Presley. Jesse has Elvis' looks, his sneer, his style—but not his singing voice. In Jesse's world... well, even in his native timeline, Jesse's existence strikes a discordant note. With no Elvis, you don't get the Beatles. Or the Stones. Or, for that matter, JFK. It's a totally different soundscape—a totally different history.


The Towers appearing "out of thin air" in South Dakota. Patrick and Zema driving through those various Disunited States between Los Angeles and Michigan. Jesse Garon Presley escaping his mother's womb in the place of a stillborn Elvis, and what that did to (not just musical) history. Driving on the Shadowbahn itself, for that matter... Shadowbahn is not science fiction, nor is it fantasy, nor indeed does it belong to any definable genre. It definitely isn't mimetic fiction, tied down to the mundane.

The word for Shadowbahn is slipstream —about which I should have more to say in a review to come.

So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms.
Your military arms.
In your electronic arms...
—"O Superman"

The United States has not yet recovered from the scars of those planes being flown into those buildings. Perhaps we never will. But Shadowbahn could conceivably be a part of that long, long process.

I was recently complaining about the layout of a book not matching its contents... in contrast, the design of this edition of Erickson's novel is exquisite. Most of its short chapters appear as discrete vignettes, each on its own page, popping serially like flashbulbs (if you are old enough to remember those) or slow and irregular strobes. Each measured portion of Shadowbahn invites the reader to continue further... if you can just get past that outline on the cover.

[Jule · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have so many questions.

There were many elements of this novel that made absolutely no sense. Take the one-page (two pages were a welcome but rare exception!) to start with. Like connected little snippets, each chapter was more of a scene - but then again, since they were linked in plot and narrative, why not combine them into one chapter? Secondly, what was the meaning of the titles - sometimes a traditional heading, sometimes a phrase seamlessly leading into the chapter proper - they were almost a poetry in themselves. Which genre should this fall into? Dystopia/Utopia (this was apparently a split America with a border running through Texas and a "Disunion currency", but this element was not introduced at all before 1/3 through), or magic-realism, or sci-fi, or metaphysical/supernatural?

Then again, there were certainly elements I could cherish: the twin (or pair) symbolism that permeated the whole story. Also the many alternative history story lines - a history without Elvis Presley, one (if I understood it correctly, I am not sure) where Kennedy never became president. The continuous importance of music in many forms. The clear typography of different segments.

Overall, however, too many questions remained at the end - there was no "solution". Or am I just overthinking everything since I am an English lit grad student? It was very modern and I certainly appreciate the basic idea - however, in the end, modern became ambiguous and unreadably vague. It is a novel for aficionados. Not so much for me.

[Todd N · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, this book reminded me of my favorite joke:

Knock knock
Who's there?
9/11
9/11 who?
YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER FORGET!

This book is about what America is about:

roads, what could have been, and roads to what could be

siblings, twins, and why stereo is better than mono

talent, luck, and why talent is not enough

the due west that is the dreamer's true north

and for a certain generation it's about the joy of curating your playlists because -- let's face it-- musicians have no sense of narrative structure whatsoever

Okay America isn't about that last one, but I was pretty locked into this book and got carried away. And it's a service that we provide with our playlists.

The book clunks a little as it's getting started, but then it hums along like a car going down a secret highway at night or the memory of one of your dad's favorite songs.

[jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shadowbahn is a novel that is of course necessarily incongruous, hallucinatory, disturbing; a nervous parity of anxiety and obsession written in the age of trumpism. it concerns the spectacle of national tragedy, the legacy of American sound, and a deconstruction of the madness in identifying as an American to begin with. thematically, narratively, and structurally, this novel announces itself as a harbinger of literature that will extend into the next decade.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned. The premise of this book was enticing - the Twin Towers suddenly appear in South Dakota, 20 years after their destruction. Something about Elvis' dead twin brother, as well. After reading about a third of the book, I had no idea where is was going, nor could I tell you what the plot was.

[Jen]

I really can't rate this book. It was difficult for me to read and possibly more difficult for me to understand. There were so many steam of conscious parts that it was very hard to connect with anyone or anything in this story.

[Allen Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.themaineedge.com/buzz/shad...

What if the Twin Towers suddenly reappeared in the badlands of South Dakota some two decades after their destruction? And what if that reappearance was a harbinger of a thinning of the barrier between dimensions, where parallel universes begin to bleed into one another and have drastic impacts on certain seminal figures within those worlds?

What if American music and American history were inextricably entwined? How would changes to one influence the direction of the other?

These are the questions posed by “Shadowbahn”, the latest novel by pop surrealist Steve Erickson. It is a weird and wonderful book, a speculative near-future look at an alternate history that explores the powerful part played by music in the shaping of the world in which we live.

One day, 20 years after their fall was felt around America, the Twin Towers suddenly appear, looming large and whole in the vast emptiness of the Dakota badlands. Dubbed by the media as “American Stonehenge,” the Towers quickly become a pilgrimage site, one to which thousands upon thousands of people flock to see (but not enter) firsthand … and where many of these pilgrims hear mysterious music that is almost-but-not-quite familiar.

This America is different than our own, one marked by a past event referred to only as “the Rupturing.” This event has led to the notion of Disunion – vast stretches of America that have declared varying levels of sovereignty. It is a fractured country confused by the seeming resurrection of a particularly powerful precursor to that fracturing.

A young man from California named Parker and his adopted sister Zema – he white, she black – embark on a road trip to see their mother in Michigan. They are accompanied by a meticulously-curated playlist created by their famous father. As they make their way in and out of Disunion territory, they – and their playlist – prove to be unexpectedly connected to the events in South Dakota.

And on the 93rd floor of one of the towers, a man awakes. Jesse Garon Presley – in our history, the stillborn twin of Elvis – is seemingly trapped, unable to engage with the world outside. His journey takes him across and outside of history. We see Jesse encounter the embittered leader of a band that never got the chance to be the biggest band in the world; he’s a prominent figure at Andy Warhol’s Factory and meets a former senator from Massachusetts who never got to be the President as part of America’s Camelot.

Both pairs – Parker and Zema; Jesse and his unseen twin – embark on supernaturally-charged journeys through unfamiliar worlds tinged with familiarity. Both trips are driven by music – the ideas of music as well as the music itself. And both are unsure of the consequences inherent to their voyages, but neither can resist the pull.

“Shadowbahn” is unabashedly unconventional, with the sprawling storytelling of the book’s first half largely giving way to introspective and in-depth explorations of music both real and imagined. Erickson stretches and molds genre tropes to accompany big, existential ideas in forming a compellingly bizarre narrative that is in constant flux. The only true consistency is the constant engrossing readability of the tale being told. There’s a richness of detail rendered all the more fascinating by that which the author chooses to leave out.

In truth, it’s difficult to articulate the specifics of why this is a great book, but make no mistake … it absolutely is. Erickson forges connections between big ideas and big events, creating a textured world whose off-kilter sensibility somehow rings true even as surreal encounters and happenings play out. While the novel ostensibly has its protagonists, it isn’t really ABOUT them; it’s more of a deep dive into the viscera of the culture at large, using musical evolution (both that that was and that that wasn’t) as a vehicle to reflect on the ways that the past leads to the present.

The work itself offers whiffs of Erickson’s usual influences – a pinch of Thomas Pynchon here, a dash of Philip K. Dick there – but the end result is, as always, something completely and uniquely his own. The complexity of his ideas is matched by the deftness of his phrasing; that combination allows for work that basks in the surreal while still remaining anchored to its own reality. Erickson’s work has always pushed the boundaries of speculative fiction’s potential; his latest is no different.

“Shadowbahn” is a challenging work, charged with engaging ideas and driven by the unexpected. It’s precisely the sort of book that we’ve come to expect from Erickson, one of the most freewheeling and unfettered storytellers of the past 30 years. And while it might not answer all of the questions it poses, it’s the asking that really matters.

Insert any superlative that you like – odds are that “Shadowbahn” warrants that praise and more.

[Andrew]

More proof that American writers have been incapable of handling 9/11 properly (and as far as I know the writers of other nations have failed pretty miserably too). DeLillo, who probably had the best shot, biffed it. Erickson did too. I fail to get why and how I'm supposed to care about the characters, and the Jesse Presley bit did nothing for me at all. Also, this is a reminder that boomers need to stop fucking reminding the rest of us of their musical tastes.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exquisitely lyrical alternate history (and future) exploring the vital indispensability of music in our lives, interspersed with a variety of twin motifs (the Twin Towers, Jesse and Elvis Presley, male and female in a transgendered person, etc.). The premise features the sudden reappearance of Twin Towers in the Badlands of South Dakota twenty years after their fall. A side trip to the site complicates a road trip by two children to visit their mother, already enhanced by the tunes of their father's much perfected playlist of blues, pop, and rock. Most memorable for me are Jesse's musings on his (alternate history) past and encounters with Andy Warhol and Jack Kennedy. A weirdly fascinating story and my introduction to this author previously unknown to me. I must read more.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in fits and starts over the past few months, which I think is as good a way to read it as any, because its story is as fractured as its presentation which is as fractured as the America at its center.

Truly, SHADOWBAHN is a marvel, one of surrealism, music criticism, and Americanism, where the latter is a field of study designed to figure out where the fuck we went wrong. I don't know how Erickson did it, but he wrote in the years preceding 2017 one of the only books that seems to explain 2017.

It's strange to finish this on New Year's Eve 2017, mere hours before the clocks change over. Strange, but fitting. Looking forward to reading it again in 20 years, and sooner.

[C.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty years after their collapse, the Twin Towers mysteriously reappear in the Badlands. Thousands gather to witness the sight, describing them as an American Stonehenge. What make this even more strange - and haunting too - is that music comes out of the buildings that no one can quite place, and is experienced slightly differently by everyone present.

‘Which ghosts are being summoned is unclear: the spirits of the Towers? Or the phantoms of the Badlands? Or do, within the buildings, the spirits of two decades previous meet the phantoms of more than a century past, and do they embrace in spectral communion, swap tales of their lives, commiserate and comfort each other over their deaths, display for each other photos and engravings of wives and husbands and children, some wrapped in animal skins and blankets and others donning Mets caps and The Blueprint sweatshirts?’

This event is the ‘landmark’ of the novel, and the blurb. But in itself, it isn't really what the story is about. As I read it, the story is about the road not taken. Every person, event, and creation has a twin: a shadow which is essentially made of the same principle but has different situational factors acting upon it. Shadowbahn bravely explores this idea on multiple layers.

When the towers reappear they are empty but for one man: Jesse, Elvis Presley’s stillborn twin brother. He comes from a shadow-reality in which he was born instead, but is tormented by a song in his head that he can't sing, and an idea of an extraordinary life that he isn't good enough to lead. It is metaphorical, I think, for the way America feels after the disaster that struck in 2001. It is in the shadow of what went before; changed forever and unable to live up to its own expectations of what it means to be great. It has a song in its head that it can't reproduce.

‘Even as the body ages, the psyche settles into whatever was your best moment, the moment when you most came into your own and fulfilled your clearest sense of who you are, when everything about you fell into the best alignment it will ever know. Maybe it's the same for a country, its psyche clinging to whenever was fulfilled its clearest sense of itself.’

This thread of story also had me thinking about how it is the times that make the icons, and the standards that they must perform to; not only the greatness of the individuals themselves. Had Elvis Presley been born into 19th Century London for example, he would not have had the same achievements. We are in an endless dance with circumstance.

‘I am nothing if not the triumph of somebody else’s idea of our era, somebody else’s idea of what the times are.’

Another aspect to the novel is the story of brother and sister Parker and Zema, who we met in Erickson’s previous book These Dreams of You. They are one another's shadow: male and female, white and black, native and immigrant. They are on a road trip to visit their Mum, but take a detour to visit the towers in the Badlands. They are listening to one of the playlists their Dad made before he died: twin playlists, in which each song had its opposite. He believed that their twin being present made something new and whole out of the music, like a key to unlock something within people's souls. The music coming from their car is for a while the only music left, which I took to be a nod to ‘the day the music died’.

Even the pages of this book are laid out as sets of two, with each having a heading or a bold first few words to emphasise this. It is a nice touch and also speeds up the pace of reading.

The story is all linked together by music, as if to say that is what the spirit of America really is. Music has a way of getting into each person in a wholly different way. Everyone who has heard a song will carry it around in connection with a different set of memories and associations, and yet it is an experience to share, to pull people together.

‘As pictures pin the maps of our lives, music marks the calendar.’

There is something ethereal about the way Erickson uses music to bind the times of events and the coordinates of his characters, that creates extra dimensions to the text as though from nowhere. Even being a fan of his other books, I didn't see it building up in the background right from the beginning, then all of a sudden it hit me that he had taken me somewhere deep. I found myself with a huge grin on my face, looking through all the gems on a frequency I was suddenly picking up. I guess that is what the author means when he says he likes to write ‘big books disguised as small books’, which is an admirable feat.

Having said all of that, Shadowbahn is not my favourite of Erickson’s novels. What took away some enjoyment for me was that there was so much mention of specific songs I don’t know, and I felt I was missing out on aspects of the story because of it. Also as I am not American, I wonder if perhaps it would've had a greater impact on me had I known more about the country’s history and had direct experience of the way its society has changed in recent times. I was glad to see it wasn't all politics though, and there is certainly a lot to be gotten out of reading Shadowbahn on a personal level too.

If you like the sound of this book, you might also be interested to read my previous post Homage to Steve Erickson in which I talk a little bit about his previous novels and why he is my favourite contemporary author.

For the original review and more, please visit my blog.