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Steve Erickson

These Dreams of You Paperback – January 31, 2012

by Steve Erickson (Author)

3.9 36 ratings

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One November night in a canyon outside L.A., Zan Nordhoc--a failed novelist turned pirate-radio DJ--sits before the television with his small, adopted black daughter, watching the election of his country's first black president. In the nova of this historic moment, with an economic recession threatening their home, Zan, his wife and their son set out to solve the enigma of a little girl whose body is a radio, broadcasting a future rhythm & blues that circles the sphere of time. Scattered across two continents, the family meets a mysterious stranger with a secret who sends the story spiraling forty years into the past, from '60s London to '70s Berlin, from the ground zero of civilization to a New World mid-air in its leap of imagination. (20111014)

Print length

309 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Europa Editions
Publication date

January 31, 2012
Dimensions

5.33 x 0.95 x 8.26 inches
ISBN-10

1609450639
ISBN-13

978-1609450632
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Editorial Reviews

From Bookforum

These Dreams of You pushes against the idea of the novel as a stagnated medium by flexing its own vitality. While Erickson is superb at striking emotional notes, conjuring up historical figures, and ruminating on race and identity, he's also content to mess around and dabble in the absurd. —Christopher Byrd

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“Drama filled with exuberance…the story is wild enough to do justice to the paradoxes and swings of our ‘democrazy’…Erickson’s jagged, jazzy voice is his own.” -The Washington Post

"Beautiful, elegiac...threads and characters serendipitously stumble through a missing-link chain of coincidences, with mazes and labyrinths both real and imagined...a complex and imaginative literary tapestry about family and identity." -Kirkus (starred review)

"Erickson expertly weaves together themes of music, politics, and idealism in a modern story where preconceptions are outdated." -Publishers Weekly

"Hypnotic...powerful...makes us wonder and cheer enthusiastically about the strange and more than coincidental thing we call life itself.”
All Things Considered, NPR

"Actions echo across time, continents and realities…a series of endless, astounding tessellations. The four Nordhocs who provide the messy, vibrant heart of These Dreams of You make up a representative tableau for the new millennium: the American family as mash-up." -The New York Times Book Review

“Truly electrifying. In its gorgeous, vivid prose and its acutely sensitive soul, These Dreams of You shows us just what a novel can still do in our own crazy times." -The Boston Globe

"Magnificent. These Dreams of You is a big novel of big ideas -- emotionally capacious and desperately relevant. As readers rush headlong toward its climax, they may feel as if they have emerged from something like a fever dream, as torrents of ideas and images wash over them." -New York Journal of Books

"These Dreams of You may well be today's Great American Novel...[the] final, choking passage belongs in the same league as the conclusions of The Great Gatsby, On the Road and Vineland." -Los Angeles Review of Books

"Deftly weaves a larger tale that reaches back to the nineteen-sixties and an earlier, equally transformative presidential candidacy...Erickson’s skillful use of metafictional techniques, coincidences, and resonances expands the story into an absorbing meditation on narrative itself." - The New Yorker

"Erickson grasps the intimate and esoteric ways that the forces of society mold us, and this is an undeniably brave book. [In] the book's rapturous final paragraphs Erickson stares into the heart of America's pain and potential and doesn't blink.” - Los Angeles Times

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Europa Editions; Publication ed. edition (January 31, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 309 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1609450639
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1609450632
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.33 x 0.95 x 8.26 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,420,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,291 in Metaphysical & Visionary Fiction (Books)
- #3,217 in Political Fiction (Books)
- #17,942 in Family Life Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 36 ratings

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Steve Erickson

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Steve Erickson is the author of ten novels — including DAYS BETWEEN STATIONS, TOURS OF THE BLACK CLOCK, ZEROVILLE and SHADOWBAHN — and three 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, the Believer, and the New York Times Book Review. Considered a writer's writer, he has been called "a maximal visionary" (Rick Moody), "a brilliantly imaginative novelist of the utmost seriousness and grace" (William Gibson), "one of the few American novelists open to the truly visionary" (Brian Evenson), "as unique and vital and pure a voice as American fiction has produced" (Jonathan Lethem), and "one of America's greatest living novelists" (Dana Spiotta). In 2021 the University Press of Mississippi issued CONVERSATIONS WITH STEVE ERICKSON as part of a series that includes William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, William S. Burroughs and Toni Morrison, proclaiming Erickson "a subterranean literary figure...[whose] dream-fueled blend of European modernism, American pulp and paranoid late-century postmodernism makes him essential to an appreciation of the last 40 years of American fiction." Erickson was founding editor of the literary journal Black Clock and presently is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside; he also writes about film, television and music for Los Angeles magazine. He has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters' award in literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award.

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3.9 out of 5

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Lindsey Ann McCann

These Travels with You

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2012

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It's a wonderful feeling when a book makes you swoon and jump for joy. Not only that, I jumped from my bed and slammed my face into the pillow when I finished "These Dreams of You".

From the very beginning I was invested in discovering the fate of Zan and his family. Plagued by financial troubles in a country steeped in recession, along with the racial implications of a white family adopting an Ethiopian child told from the perspective of a generation that lived through a country's history of political and social race relations, one could not help but sympathize with Zan as he puts his head in his hands at the announcement of his country's first black president. With complete honesty and an air of self deprecating humor, Zan reveals how we may be flawed as individuals, but our love for something greater than ourselves can propel us into change. Riddled with the simplest of details here and there, true to experience, Steve Erickson nicely ties the loops throughout to keep you wanting more, saving the very best to the very very end.

I normally buy a book like this in print so that I can feel the pages in my hands and find the perfect bookmark to personalize the experience. Since I was about to embark on my own adventure, I purchased the kindle version for lighter packing. This led to an even more commiserate experience. Steve Erickson's compact chapter break style had me saying, "Oh, just one more," over and over again when I read "Zeroville" in print. But without the luxury of being able to skip so easily ahead on the kindle, I found myself agonizing right along with the characters wondering what could possibly be next.

I would certainly recommend purchasing "These Dreams of You" for your kindle, though I'm so intrigued by this experience that I will be purchasing the paperback as well.

It was fun, thanks.

2 people found this helpful

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JJohnston

Oh, the characters!

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2012

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I fell in love with the characters in Steve Erickson's "These Dreams of You"! Even though Zan, Viv, Parker & Sheba end up on the strangest of journeys, they still represent an All-American family -- one that struggles to take care of each other physically and emotionally and to create a unique family identity and history. The author absolutely captures how completely the love you feel as a parent takes over your life -- how desperate, overwhelming, and beautiful that is.

Erickson performs literary yoga here, brilliantly bending the narrative through our nation's recent past utilizing social, political and musical references. The masterful writing skills are evident, but they don't overpower the compelling characters and story here. You're pulling for all of them through the last page.

One of the ways I know that I know I loved a book, not just liked it, is that I want to keep it in my library to come back and read again. "These Dreams of You" is now part of my permanent collection.

8 people found this helpful

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H.G.

It's not his best, but Erickson's best is almost painful.

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2012

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First, Erickson is pure genius. I've read them all and love most of them passionately. This one I love like family ... but don't like as much as some of his older stuff.

This is not the classic Erickson which makes the reader a participant in the story, an essential piece of the narrative puzzle. This is new, reader as merely audience. That sounds like a bad thing until you think about it and realize that 99% of authors treat readers as audience. It's not a flaw, it's just a change. I miss being a participant, but if I must be audience this is the kind of book I want to sit for.

Erickson is undoubtedly one of America's finest authors and this book may be more accessible to some readers than his earlier work precisely for the reason stated above.

6 people found this helpful

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AB

Wish I didn't pay cash for this book...

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2012

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The book is not organized in chapters, so you better have a book mark! This is definitely a book you will put down repeatedly, but commission yourself to finish with hope it improves, because we appreciate the characters honesty and in depth self critique of his nothingness. The story line has is interesting concepts, gripping at times, but mostly a lot of lengthy verbiage on descriptions, feelings surrounding contemporary issues with guilty "whiteness" (having adopted an ethiopian, but not for the trend and for loving the election of a black president) all while facing foreclosure and poverty. At one point the story captures you, despite everything else about the book, but ultimately proves a waste. There are moments one can appreciate the characters introspection, but again at some point you have had enough. This story is like a boring confessional...

I heard a review of this book on talk radio and ran to support the author. We credit the author for mentioning hot topics. But it just didn't cut it for me. Leaves you feeling unsettled and angry for purchasing this book with cash (vs trading with goods or services), even if only $10.

4 people found this helpful

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Eric Selby

I Could Not Finish This Novel

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2012

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I wanted to like this novel. I really did. The concept is fascinating. I like the little "chapters," almost like reading a bunch of flash fiction. And I liked the characters, the concept of problems parents have when adopting a child of a different race and from Africa as well in this case. And I liked how the black child's destiny with the adoptive parents could be woven into the new president of the United States. So having said all this, why the two stars? Because it just got to be a struggle getting anywhere with this novel. The backstory stuff was so awful. And that's where I quit. So I have no idea how it ends. Did Sheba go back to Africa? Who was this "nanny" in London? What happened to the parents and their own child since they were in foreclosure? And I will never know because it just is too much to continue--and I am an avid read.

One person found this helpful

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Caroline

Enjoyable, but not his best

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2012

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'These Dreams of You' is very much a Steve Erickson novel in terms of his melancholic exploration of human relationships - linking characters through seemingly coincidental actions spanning broad timescales and locations. There are also a number of recurring characters and themes in his novels which his faithful readers have come to recognise, and this is no exception.

However, the book is primarily a political commentry on race and the role it plays in family life in modern America. It asks questions of the reader - is it ok for a white novelist to make a character black for no other reason than that's the way he imagines her? Is it even relevant to point out the race of the character? As the novelist re-writes his own journey for culture, does a polictian re-live a fate predetermined by the same culture?

The story follows a couple, Zan and Viv, in their search for the biological mother of their adopted Ethiopian daughter. Their financial struggles and demands of parenthood colour their journey with desperation and determination. There are many references and integrations of real life personalities, politcians and pop stars along the way, who although are not named directly go undisguised. For me this deflects from Erickson's own ideas and narrative, and feels at times a little lazy for such a talented and imaginative writer.

The book is a very straight-forward read. Its short passages in place of chapters makes it difficult to put down, and the suggested character connections are less of a puzzle than some of Erickson's earlier works. Though it has to be said, this also makes it less rewarding.

To my mind, Erickson's talents lie in creating dreamlike scenarios - showing us worlds that are on the face of it our own, yet with subtle differences in their rules that make the reader feel they are somehow behind a veil. 'Rubicon Beach', 'The Sea Came in at Midnight' and 'Days Between Stations' are some of my favourite novels because of this. Recently though, it is as though Erickson is re-evaluating himself and his value as a modern writer and as a result his work is less adventurous and striking.

Enjoyable, at times thought provoking, but not his best.

3 people found this helpful

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