Arc D'X [Import] [Paperback]

Steve Erickson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; New Ed edition (October 27, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099369311
• ISBN-13: 978-0099369318
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Steve Erickson is the author of nine novels, including 2012's THESE DREAMS OF YOU, and two nonfiction works. His books have appeared on best-of-the-year lists in Newsweek, the Washington Post BookWorld, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice and the New York Times Book Review. He's the editor of the literary journal Black Clock, published by the California Institute of the Arts where he teaches; he also writes about film for Los Angeles magazine and the current presidential campaign for American Prospect. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' award in literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happiness and Chaos, May 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Arc D'X (Paperback)

"Arc D'X" is formally and thematically in the tradition of William Faulkner and Ishmael Reed -- the novel pounds down traditional versions of history, sex and race relations, and serves up what remains in a chaotic vision of culture at the turn of the 21st century. The scale-shifting and looping narrative(s) of the book are enough to cause vertigo in readers unaccustomed to the style, but the Jefferson/Hemings tension is rich enough to interest anyone concerned with the kind of private obsessions that have their fruition sometimes in the history of a nation, or in the history of an idea such as "the pursuit of happiness."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A uniquely American novel., April 30, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Arc D'X (Paperback)

Even if you don't believe the hyperbolic Pynchon
cover blurb, check out this extraordinary novel.
Erickson takes us to Paris, where Thomas Jefferson
rapes his young slave, Sally Heming. Sally then becomes
the weft of the novel, weaving together
the theme (the relationship between love and freedom) and the diverse time-locales, including turn-of-the-millenium Berlin and an unspecified
dystopian city at the foot of an active volcano.
Erickson's prose is razor-sharp, and his fictional
universe is both complex and internally consistent, making this novel a rewarding read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual and Unforgettable, November 22, 2010

By 

Jason Galbraith (Little Elm, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Arc D'X (Paperback)

"Arc d'X" is conceived as the buildup to a sort of melding of different time periods, which a physicist, in a throwaway sequence, discovers will happen at the end of the second millenium. The major characters spend most of the movie living in separate and discrete centuries, then, at the end, their time periods mingle and they can come in contact with each other.

The three major periods depicted are 1999, the 1780's, and sometime during the Ice Age. Author Steve Erickson makes himself a character in the 1999 segment and at first we think this segment will be about his adventures, but a shocking twist deprives the reader of this. The main characters in the 1780's period are Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Much has been written about their relationship, but I think the reader will find Erickson's take on it (and what it could have led to had Jefferson been just a little more devoted to Sally) quite fresh.

The most interesting by far of the three major stories is the one set during the Ice Age. This is not a story about primitive hunter-gatherers but rather about a technological, urban civilization and the life and loves of one of its denizens, named Etcher. I was first made aware of the existence of this book by an ex-girlfriend in 1994, and Etcher's life story was sufficiently compelling that I gave the book not only to her, but to another woman I loved before her. The Erickson character in the 1999 sequence briefly refers to the "Big One" hitting California and unearthing remains of this civilization. I have spent a great deal of time thinking of other ways in which its existence could be discovered. For example, a computer program could be made to prove that a 10,000 year old hunk of corroded metal halfway between Siberia and Alaska is actually a railway car. That would be a fun story to write; but probably not as fun to read as this one was. Five stars.