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Sunflower
A screenplay that predicts the future. A terrorist cult destined to destroy something they can't remember. A projectionist trying to find her way through a story she's suddenly aware she's living. A loser who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time. And the disparate particles and people populating a slowly-collapsing, not-so-far-from-now world where movie theaters no longer exist, one percent of the population is dead, and everything we do is surveilled and advertised. This is Sunflower -- the final film by Simeon Wolpe.
536 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 9, 2021
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737 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 8, 2021
If Paul Thomas Anderson wrote a novel based on a film by David Foster Wallace with a screenplay by Thomas Pynchon about dark Hollywood, mind-bending conspiracy, the slapstick horror of America, and sheer insanity of existence, these would be some in a long line of flavors the sum total of which might come partway to encapsulating Sunflower. Hilarious, repulsive, enthralling, shocking, breathtaking, masterful—Tex Gresham's magnum opus is a novel you will use all your adjectives attempting to describe; a dense, multi-character tale in which each place and person, every moment and word, are connected through myriad layers across space and time. The effect is staggering. This book will swallow you whole then spit you back out, dazed, bewildered, transformed—hungering for more.
January 3, 2024
I can't wait to get around to rereading this - for the sheer pleasure of it. The heir to David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon's penchant for down-the-rabbit-hole narratives and Chinese-box plot devices, Gresham is one of those authors whose talent seems fully accomplished while still retaining an enormous potential. A most welcome addition to the L.A New Wave that's been permeating my literary and musical landscape for a while now.
November 17, 2021
I loved all 600+ pages of this adventure called Sunflower. I’d never heard of Tex Gresham before but thanks to friends on social media I can now put him down as my “forever author.” I’ll read anything he writes. It was wordy in all the good ways. It was creative in a myriad of ways. And it was funny as ****. It’s what you want from great literature. Something that keeps you turning the page and entertains as well. Playful and fun. Absolutely loved. Pick it up and you’ll enjoy the ride as well. Swear.
December 11, 2021
The Crying of Lot 49. The Man in the High Castle. Mulholland Drive. The Corrections. Videodrome. Breakfast of Champions. Being John Malkovich. The Player. Boogie Nights. Infinite Jest. Magnolia. Sunflower.
November 28, 2021
Deleted Scene: We Must Abide. Whisper the word Abraxis, in a world where entertainment has become the new religion, for access. (Redacted). Now Seating in Theater 2: A Vast Entertainment Based Manipulation: Cutting Room.
Beethoven Symphony 9 OP. 125 Begins…
This review is brought to you by SensiSystem - Actually Feel it.
In 1954, Hugh Everett, while drinking sherry under the influence of the existentially grand hypothesis that the entire universe, according to the rules of quantum mechanics, was what he described as the universal wave function, cultivated a radical new theory of entangled superposition known as the many-worlds-interpretation of quantum physics. Then, in November, 2021, author Tex Gresham created a masterful new novel that has branched a new sprawling literary and cinematic superposition of its own, that has fractured, then reframed our idea of what a novel can be into many new possible worlds.
Sunflower is a brilliant, phantasmagorical, densely composed, cinematic dreamscape of a novel which meticulously unravels, uniquely, in a manner that reminds readers that the highest form of entertainment currently available to the species is now hidden, not somewhere behind the glow of our short-attention-span-screens, but it is instead nested deep within the prosperous great American novel, as Tex Gresham has placed the spirit of this ideal on full display in his masterfully exquisite new novel Sunflower. (Brought to you by: True Foe Empirical Broadcasting Systems within the United America Empire).
Sunflower is a brilliantly crafted, labyrinthine literary tour-de-force which projects so much luminosity, fired methodically across multiple short arc trajectories through a house of language radically ionized in Xenon gas, across the gulf of the Great Separation Fault, dizzy under the ZU-66 fever-dream, trampled by cocaine hippos, screaming from the space between edits, examining subliminal messages in film, high on the performance enhancing marvel of SunCor’s new X-Trim Formula, while being pulverized by roving overhead Ad-drones, with particles transposed into the physical form of a lion, first realized by van Gogh in 1888, then by Chance Foster in the year 199, “Even if you’re going away forever you don’t leave behind a broken memory," lost in the interplanetary transport network somewhere between the earth and Mars, screaming at 24 frames per 600 plus pages, what comes soaring kaleidoscopically out the other side is a complex, experimental metafictional array of theories, ideas, concepts, conspiracies, and philosophies, all built around a screenplay within a book, about a film within a book, that the reader will be left gasping for air at the end, eventually comparing this book, even if it exceeds in its accomplishment the work of those that have preceded or influenced it, but makes names such as Lynch, Kubrick, Pynchon, Inarritu, Foster Wallace, and P.T. Anderson immediately come to mind. Sunflower is a debut novel so stunning that it will provide the ambitious reader with little time to run for an 02 Sakuru Pigma Micron pen as the immediate need to capture the flourish of marginalia and annotations, need to track this marvelous fractal of a novel will arrive faster than Prefontaine can cross a long-distance finish-line.
Tex Gresham is an author that we are just now getting to know, but he is also an author that ten years from now, he will be a household name, and we will all look fondly back at his stunning debut novel Sunflower as the point on the map notating the moment that his incredible career began, and we will all be pleased to report that we were there!
Help me…
Sent less than an hour ago.
Phillip Freedenberg
Author of America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic
November 2021
North Carolina
Beethoven Symphony 9 OP. 125 Begins…
This review is brought to you by SensiSystem - Actually Feel it.
In 1954, Hugh Everett, while drinking sherry under the influence of the existentially grand hypothesis that the entire universe, according to the rules of quantum mechanics, was what he described as the universal wave function, cultivated a radical new theory of entangled superposition known as the many-worlds-interpretation of quantum physics. Then, in November, 2021, author Tex Gresham created a masterful new novel that has branched a new sprawling literary and cinematic superposition of its own, that has fractured, then reframed our idea of what a novel can be into many new possible worlds.
Sunflower is a brilliant, phantasmagorical, densely composed, cinematic dreamscape of a novel which meticulously unravels, uniquely, in a manner that reminds readers that the highest form of entertainment currently available to the species is now hidden, not somewhere behind the glow of our short-attention-span-screens, but it is instead nested deep within the prosperous great American novel, as Tex Gresham has placed the spirit of this ideal on full display in his masterfully exquisite new novel Sunflower. (Brought to you by: True Foe Empirical Broadcasting Systems within the United America Empire).
Sunflower is a brilliantly crafted, labyrinthine literary tour-de-force which projects so much luminosity, fired methodically across multiple short arc trajectories through a house of language radically ionized in Xenon gas, across the gulf of the Great Separation Fault, dizzy under the ZU-66 fever-dream, trampled by cocaine hippos, screaming from the space between edits, examining subliminal messages in film, high on the performance enhancing marvel of SunCor’s new X-Trim Formula, while being pulverized by roving overhead Ad-drones, with particles transposed into the physical form of a lion, first realized by van Gogh in 1888, then by Chance Foster in the year 199, “Even if you’re going away forever you don’t leave behind a broken memory," lost in the interplanetary transport network somewhere between the earth and Mars, screaming at 24 frames per 600 plus pages, what comes soaring kaleidoscopically out the other side is a complex, experimental metafictional array of theories, ideas, concepts, conspiracies, and philosophies, all built around a screenplay within a book, about a film within a book, that the reader will be left gasping for air at the end, eventually comparing this book, even if it exceeds in its accomplishment the work of those that have preceded or influenced it, but makes names such as Lynch, Kubrick, Pynchon, Inarritu, Foster Wallace, and P.T. Anderson immediately come to mind. Sunflower is a debut novel so stunning that it will provide the ambitious reader with little time to run for an 02 Sakuru Pigma Micron pen as the immediate need to capture the flourish of marginalia and annotations, need to track this marvelous fractal of a novel will arrive faster than Prefontaine can cross a long-distance finish-line.
Tex Gresham is an author that we are just now getting to know, but he is also an author that ten years from now, he will be a household name, and we will all look fondly back at his stunning debut novel Sunflower as the point on the map notating the moment that his incredible career began, and we will all be pleased to report that we were there!
Help me…
Sent less than an hour ago.
Phillip Freedenberg
Author of America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic
November 2021
North Carolina
September 16, 2021
I have read Sunflower twice in one month. The first time was an overwhelming grand experience that reminded me of when I got lost at an outdoor cinema in childhood. The movie on the giant screen was so mesmerizing that I left my family to be as close to the magic as I could. The memories of that night are in fragments, but forever. Sunflower round one was Tex Gresham's novel operating as the big screen magnificent images that might bend time and place and all logics of storytelling. Round two was cautiously entering to examine what just happened in round one actually happened.
Gresham's sorcerous storytelling takes you inside the belly of America we live in and are numb about it, then wakes you up unapologetically to show what you never thought you would see. Then, finally, he turns the cinema lights on, and you have to fight to hold on to the memory of what you just read. I challenge you to find one writer who has such mastery.
Gresham's sorcerous storytelling takes you inside the belly of America we live in and are numb about it, then wakes you up unapologetically to show what you never thought you would see. Then, finally, he turns the cinema lights on, and you have to fight to hold on to the memory of what you just read. I challenge you to find one writer who has such mastery.
October 20, 2022
I tried to explain Sunflower to a coworker when they asked what I was reading. I wanted to just chuck the book at their head, tell them to go nuts, and play Beethoven once they got to Pg. 426. I didn't end up doing that but that's what I'll tell you to do.
April 6, 2022
This was really damn good. Other reviews give a pretty good idea of the book, so I'll just leave it at that.
December 20, 2021
Sunflower by Tex Gresham is one of those encyclopedic novels. To reduce it down to its most basic plot: the novel is about an international conspiracy, a terrorist plot, and Hollywood. It mimics the storytelling devices of film and almost begs for adaptation while also seeming impossible to adapt. Divided into three acts, the text has over a dozen deleted scenes in the back of the book, an alternate ending, includes excerpts of a screenplay, and even a message from the Zodiac killer to decode. This is a two-bookmark book. It actually feels more like a Criterion Collection release than a story ready for the screen.
Sunflower is kind of like vomiting the movies Inherent Vice and Brazil on top of Infinite Jest and House of Leaves. It runs the entire emotional gamut, it’s overflowing with rich characterization, it unravels and winds back up—it’s fucking long, a truly maximalist affair. In the novel, our reality blends into an alternate future where the United States is an empire with California as a commonwealth. References to A-list actors and films alongside fictional ones make this alternate future feel real and lived in.
Gresham has a penchant for the macabre. Few characters in Sunflower make it through the story unmaimed. There are tongues cut out, genital torture, hand bones squeezed to a pulp, stabbings, shootings, and people melting into slime. The conspiracies and horror were expected, but the top-tier comedy was not. When Gresham crafts a morose scene, it’s contrasted with black humor of the highest caliber. The comedic timing is uncanny, like a spoonful of sugar to help the misery go down. He has a knack for crafting high-tension scenes and then releasing that tension in a satisfying yet unpredictable way.
For example, there’s a scene where a man is on a blind date with a beautiful aspiring actress. They’re at an expensive restaurant. He’s a little anxious and trying to find the right moment to get up and pee. It gets to the point that he feels like his guts are in open revolt against him. When his date reveals that she’s only fifteen he loses all interest, stands up, and makes his way to the restroom. His contorted guts blast loud farts all the way through the dining room to the disgust of many. After urinating, he makes a dark discovery in one of the bathroom stalls that foreshadows what’s to come in the rest of the novel. Sunflower is chock full of gross and hilarious scenes like this, which are crucial to the plot’s development.
The book starts off a little messy. It’s not clear who the main characters are until the second act. But the story is engrossing if the reader can adjust to its nonlinear style. The meta-plot lands its climax and wraps up with a satisfying conclusion—though it does sort of sprint to the end in the third act. Sunflower is dense and there is only so much a reader can gleam in one pass, which is to say, it has incredibly high replay value. The novel stands out because of how it doesn’t fit into the publishing landscape. It’s too lowbrow for literary fiction and not sci-fi or horror enough for typical genre readers. So, take a break from your regular diet of genre and/or literary fiction and read some kind of bizzarro novel from a totally obsessed author.
Tex Gresham wears his influences on Sunflower’s sleeve. That’s not a diss or a detraction either; Gresham isn’t parroting his heroes. Rather, he is the dream realized of every kid with an encyclopedic knowledge of their interests. He’s one of those people who has seen every interview with their favorite filmmakers and musicians. The kind of person who probably bores their friends with the details they never cared to know about a film. But what sets Tex Gresham apart from the rest of that ilk is that he’s the one in ten thousand who actually takes that knowledge, those influences, and creates something truly inspired with it. He’s synthesizing his influences into some other style that is all his own and putting his work out into the world.
Originally published at FrictionLit.org
Sunflower is kind of like vomiting the movies Inherent Vice and Brazil on top of Infinite Jest and House of Leaves. It runs the entire emotional gamut, it’s overflowing with rich characterization, it unravels and winds back up—it’s fucking long, a truly maximalist affair. In the novel, our reality blends into an alternate future where the United States is an empire with California as a commonwealth. References to A-list actors and films alongside fictional ones make this alternate future feel real and lived in.
Gresham has a penchant for the macabre. Few characters in Sunflower make it through the story unmaimed. There are tongues cut out, genital torture, hand bones squeezed to a pulp, stabbings, shootings, and people melting into slime. The conspiracies and horror were expected, but the top-tier comedy was not. When Gresham crafts a morose scene, it’s contrasted with black humor of the highest caliber. The comedic timing is uncanny, like a spoonful of sugar to help the misery go down. He has a knack for crafting high-tension scenes and then releasing that tension in a satisfying yet unpredictable way.
For example, there’s a scene where a man is on a blind date with a beautiful aspiring actress. They’re at an expensive restaurant. He’s a little anxious and trying to find the right moment to get up and pee. It gets to the point that he feels like his guts are in open revolt against him. When his date reveals that she’s only fifteen he loses all interest, stands up, and makes his way to the restroom. His contorted guts blast loud farts all the way through the dining room to the disgust of many. After urinating, he makes a dark discovery in one of the bathroom stalls that foreshadows what’s to come in the rest of the novel. Sunflower is chock full of gross and hilarious scenes like this, which are crucial to the plot’s development.
The book starts off a little messy. It’s not clear who the main characters are until the second act. But the story is engrossing if the reader can adjust to its nonlinear style. The meta-plot lands its climax and wraps up with a satisfying conclusion—though it does sort of sprint to the end in the third act. Sunflower is dense and there is only so much a reader can gleam in one pass, which is to say, it has incredibly high replay value. The novel stands out because of how it doesn’t fit into the publishing landscape. It’s too lowbrow for literary fiction and not sci-fi or horror enough for typical genre readers. So, take a break from your regular diet of genre and/or literary fiction and read some kind of bizzarro novel from a totally obsessed author.
Tex Gresham wears his influences on Sunflower’s sleeve. That’s not a diss or a detraction either; Gresham isn’t parroting his heroes. Rather, he is the dream realized of every kid with an encyclopedic knowledge of their interests. He’s one of those people who has seen every interview with their favorite filmmakers and musicians. The kind of person who probably bores their friends with the details they never cared to know about a film. But what sets Tex Gresham apart from the rest of that ilk is that he’s the one in ten thousand who actually takes that knowledge, those influences, and creates something truly inspired with it. He’s synthesizing his influences into some other style that is all his own and putting his work out into the world.
Originally published at FrictionLit.org
November 14, 2021
Tex Gresham's hefty Sunflower is an ambitious and challenging brick of a book, a novel I found reminiscent of Levin’s Bubblegum, Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport and even Wallace’s Infinite Jest. In many ways—unconventional storytelling, interwoven plots, conspiratorial alternative realities and complexity—Sunflower is an experimental work of fiction that requires the reader invest in the experience. There’s much to unpack, and the novel’s own creative structure—the use of deleted scenes and alternate endings, for example—means you’ll have to apply some energy in the process. Were I still in college, I can only imagine the late-night conversations and intense debates the book surely would have spawned. If you’re up to the task, Sunflower awaits.
Read
November 16, 2023App crashed in the middle of my big long write-up so just doing an abridged review
- hated the deleted scenes, I don’t like when experimental fiction messes with typefaces and page format and stuff
- plot setup was pretty cool, I liked Chance and Delta’s intros, but novel nosedived once it got into the H̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ I̶n̶s̶t̶r̶u̶m̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ P̶r̶o̶j̶e̶c̶t̶ I mean project sunflower and A̶k̶i̶r̶a̶ oh I been Bubs stuff. Forced convolution but was kinda surface level, like Gresham wanted to build intrigue but everything was pretty clear the whole time
- strange reading an author who is clearly terminally online. Elon Musk, spacex, memes, it felt weird
- attempts at Pynchonian naming were hamfisted. Islamophobic character names Houellebecq? Yea okay. Lucius Beezelb? Sigh
- climax was bizarre, like, the 690 lb anvil? Chekhov’s big honking “plot device here” sign, I guess. And the fourth wall breaking? Cmon
Overall felt like a b action movie in novel form that’s kinda bad but not so bad it’s good. But that’s also what I think Gresham was going for, it was supposed to feel like a silly movie. Um what else.
This was Gresham’s first novel, right? There is a lot here, he’s a talented writer, I just think Sunflower was a bit over ambitious. Strange mix of really unique inspired voice and triteness.
I’d give it a 3.5. Recommend because it’s fun to read new stuff. But this isn’t groundbreaking.
- hated the deleted scenes, I don’t like when experimental fiction messes with typefaces and page format and stuff
- plot setup was pretty cool, I liked Chance and Delta’s intros, but novel nosedived once it got into the H̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ I̶n̶s̶t̶r̶u̶m̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ P̶r̶o̶j̶e̶c̶t̶ I mean project sunflower and A̶k̶i̶r̶a̶ oh I been Bubs stuff. Forced convolution but was kinda surface level, like Gresham wanted to build intrigue but everything was pretty clear the whole time
- strange reading an author who is clearly terminally online. Elon Musk, spacex, memes, it felt weird
- attempts at Pynchonian naming were hamfisted. Islamophobic character names Houellebecq? Yea okay. Lucius Beezelb? Sigh
- climax was bizarre, like, the 690 lb anvil? Chekhov’s big honking “plot device here” sign, I guess. And the fourth wall breaking? Cmon
Overall felt like a b action movie in novel form that’s kinda bad but not so bad it’s good. But that’s also what I think Gresham was going for, it was supposed to feel like a silly movie. Um what else.
This was Gresham’s first novel, right? There is a lot here, he’s a talented writer, I just think Sunflower was a bit over ambitious. Strange mix of really unique inspired voice and triteness.
I’d give it a 3.5. Recommend because it’s fun to read new stuff. But this isn’t groundbreaking.
February 18, 2024
I got suckered again.
1. My GR feed brings a book to my attention by an unknown author - This is fine, I've discovered plenty of great new authors this way
2. The book has a high page count (600+) - Also of interest to me - I like immersing myself into someone else's world(view)
3. Some use of "non-standard" formatting. In this case inclusions of film script extracts. Not exactly groundbreaking though.
3. Things get dodgy here - Reviewers I've never heard of compare said tome to authors I rate highly (such as Pynchon, Kafka, Ballard, Gaddis etc.etc)
4. No mention of this book in any of the mainstream press
5. Who are these people providing the blurbs on the cover? My guess is it's a case of "you scratch my back and I'll return the favour"
So I end up slogging my way through a plot which makes less and less sense the deeper you go. One of the cover blurbs mentions the book being an acid trip masquerading as a conspiracy theory and that's closer to the truth than they probably meant. It's like the author was permanently tripping out, what with the mention of aliens, flesh-eating slugs and whatnot.
Note to self: Be more careful in future!
1. My GR feed brings a book to my attention by an unknown author - This is fine, I've discovered plenty of great new authors this way
2. The book has a high page count (600+) - Also of interest to me - I like immersing myself into someone else's world(view)
3. Some use of "non-standard" formatting. In this case inclusions of film script extracts. Not exactly groundbreaking though.
3. Things get dodgy here - Reviewers I've never heard of compare said tome to authors I rate highly (such as Pynchon, Kafka, Ballard, Gaddis etc.etc)
4. No mention of this book in any of the mainstream press
5. Who are these people providing the blurbs on the cover? My guess is it's a case of "you scratch my back and I'll return the favour"
So I end up slogging my way through a plot which makes less and less sense the deeper you go. One of the cover blurbs mentions the book being an acid trip masquerading as a conspiracy theory and that's closer to the truth than they probably meant. It's like the author was permanently tripping out, what with the mention of aliens, flesh-eating slugs and whatnot.
Note to self: Be more careful in future!
September 2, 2023
a plot that keeps you guessing, unforgettable set pieces, formal experimentation, a couple dozen compelling and clearly-delineated characters, poop and fart jokes galore, plenty of winks and asides, some truly stomach-churning violence, both a "good" and "bad" ending for you to choose from (really), genuine pathos, a sprinkle of broad-ass political satire, even an (optional) cipher to decrypt!
i wolfed this thicc book down in three consecutive nightly reading sessions—the quintessential couldn't-put-it-down experience. rollicking, bewildering and self-consciously ridiculous, this was like all the most fun, accessible parts of reading Pynchon without his penchant for extended inscrutable fugues.
Gresham calls out his many influences by name—PT Anderson, DFW, Kubrick and Herzog, among others—and cleverly works in references to them throughout like so many easter eggs. but enough about other auteurs, cause Sunflower makes a strong case for Tex Gresham as a potential new master of metafiction and near-future mayhem.
i wolfed this thicc book down in three consecutive nightly reading sessions—the quintessential couldn't-put-it-down experience. rollicking, bewildering and self-consciously ridiculous, this was like all the most fun, accessible parts of reading Pynchon without his penchant for extended inscrutable fugues.
Gresham calls out his many influences by name—PT Anderson, DFW, Kubrick and Herzog, among others—and cleverly works in references to them throughout like so many easter eggs. but enough about other auteurs, cause Sunflower makes a strong case for Tex Gresham as a potential new master of metafiction and near-future mayhem.
December 21, 2021
Pick this book up. Hold it in your hands. Think hard about the world you live in. Say thank you that this book is fiction. Thank Tex for taking you to a place where you would not otherwise go. It is a gift.
December 20, 2021
Best of the year for me. Sprawling psych freak out. Like dropping acid with David Lynch. Man this could have gone so wrong under another writer, but thankfully Tex is a living legend
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews