Zanesville: A Novel [Paperback]

Kris Saknussemm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2005

WHO IS ELIJAH CLEARFATHER?

Futuristic bioweapon or good old-fashioned messiah? Reincarnated ex-porn star or mutant information-age revolutionary? The man who awakens in New York City’s Central Park with no memory of his identity and the enigmatic message FATHER FORGIVE THEM F carved into the flesh of his back may be all of these things and more.

Taken in (and then expelled) by a group of freedom fighters battling the soul-deadening Vitessa Cultporation, Clearfather is a stranger in an even stranger land. Following tantalizing clues that point to the gnomic Stinky Wiggler, and pursued by murderous Vitessa agents, Clearfather embarks on a surreal odyssey of self-discovery across an America that resembles a vast amusement park designed by some unholy trinity of Walt Disney, Hunter S. Thompson, and Hieronymus Bosch.

Accompanying Clearfather is an unforgettable cast of characters–including Aretha Nightingale, an ex-football-playing drag queen; Dooley Duck and Ubba Dubba, hologram cartoon characters sprung outrageously to life; and the ethereally beautiful Kokomo, whose past is as much a mystery as Clearfather’s own.

By turns hilarious and deeply moving, a savage, fiercely intelligent satire that is also a page-turning adventure and a transcendent love story, Zanesville marks the arrival of a brilliant new voice in fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Saknussemm's debut novel describes the picaresque wanderings of a Zelig-like character through a post-apocalyptic America where psychotropic drug dependency and bodily mutilation/alteration are the order of the day. The protagonist, Clearfather, awakens as a middle-aged man in a future Central Park, with vague childhood memories and an outsize member. He makes his way through an America in which the divide between public and private is so nonexistent that the U.S. government itself is privatized, outsourced to the monolithic drug manufacturer, Vitessa Cultporation. Searching for his identity and an explanation of the current state of the barely unified union, Clearfather encounters deposed sex-obsessed–drug-addicted corporate scions, lesbian motorcycle gangs, gay heavyweights and possibly the creator of the universe, at least in its current state. Saknussemm creates a self-contained, sci-fi world where celebrity worship is pervasive and holographic mascots, "eidolons," stand in as shills for everything from fast-food haggis to "Childrite nurturing centers." Tedious action sequences between warring factions and an autistic attention to authorial eschatology make this a long trudge. But it is just a slight step into the imaginative ether to see how many of the novel's obsessions are endgame imaginings of current societal problems. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* This sweeping, satirical first novel envisions a not-so-distant future America in which earthquakes and holy wars have wreaked havoc on the national psyche, and the people are either reclusive and superrich or damaged victims of misguided technologies. Into this schizophrenic landscape steps Elijah Clearfather, a mysterious, super-mentally-gifted amnesiac who can bring his enemies to their knees simply by chanting tongue twisters. Found by a clandestine community of rebel hackers living in Central Park, Clearfather bears a striking resemblance to a former porn-star-turned-cult-leader executed, Waco-style, by the FBI. Possessing the ability to infiltrate and unhinge the minds of those around him, Clearfather is ultimately deemed too dangerous for community membership and is ceremoniously packed onto a Greyhound bus with a makeover and a map leading him back through his haunted past. Thus Clearfather is launched on a madcap journey that involves errant 3-D-advertising icon Dooley Duck; an unlikely friendship with a wealthy adolescent drug addict and Warhol, a mutant bull mastiff; and the love of Kokomo, an enigmatic girl whose past may be as mysterious as his own. Part picaresque, part brilliantly inventive black comedy, Zanesville is one of the most creative, edgy, and entertaining novels sf has spawned in a decade. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Villard (October 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812974166
• ISBN-13: 978-0812974164
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #881,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and scary at the same time... big brother is watching..., October 31, 2005

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Zanesville: A Novel (Paperback)

ZANESVILLE by Kris Saknussemm
October 31, 2005

Amazon rating 4/5

Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton

"Kris Saknussemm's Zanesville is a satire of the not too distant future, a dystopia where most people are addicted to drugs, California has fallen into the ocean, and crime and murder are commonplace. Bioengineering has its day, with altered creatures of all kinds, part machine and part animal. And alternate food sources are abundant (beef doesn't seem to be on the menu any more!)

It is Post-Bigfoot (the earthquake known to all as THE BIG ONE) and the world is run by a Cultporation called Vitessa, which is close to the Big Brother that Orwell predicted. A man with no identity (named ClearFather by one of his rescuers) seeks a clue to who he is and how he got where he landed in New York City's Central Park. ClearFather arrived via a tornado, and that is all he can remember. His past has been wiped out, and the world in which he finds himself is frightening and bizarre. On his journey to discover who he is, ClearFather meets various people including: Aretha Nightingale, a black drag queen; Kokomo, the beautiful woman/child who does not speak; and others who befriend him along the way or pass him on the road to a newfound identity.

The reader sees the world through ClearFather's bewildered eyes - his knowledge seems to have come from a time long ago." - Complete review found at BookLoons dot com - M Lofton

ZANESVILLE is a very different type of novel, not for the faint of heart. Those who enjoyed books such as Margaret Atwood's ORYX AND CRAKE may appreciate Saknussemm's futuristic story.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scary funny, October 22, 2005

By 

Michelle B. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zanesville: A Novel (Paperback)

Where to begin? If it wasn't so well written you'd say this was completely wacko. If you like stories that are really out there and make you think, this ones it. It's a nightmare, but it's funny. It wil make you even more worried about America and the future--and yet it will uplift you too. Definitely a book to remember.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars REALLY FUN, INVENTIVE STUFF, March 26, 2006

By 

Frederick Henriques "Fred" (Castlemare, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zanesville: A Novel (Paperback)

I'd read the rave review for this book in LA CityBeat and was curious about how it would match up against expectations. The answer? Zanesville is one of the funniest, lewdest and most disturbing books I've ever read. I can't think of a book in recent memory that displayed such a unique quality of imagination. The fictional world, and it is a world, is brought to life with such intensity of detail. Even if you're not a fan of out-there new fiction, you will enjoy and admire the humor. At several points I laughed out loud and had to read passages back to myself. Really fun, inventive
stuff. This is one of the few new books that lives up to the rave reviews.