Shadowbahn, Steve Erickson
Shadowbahn, Steve Erickson
2 Rating(s)
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Shadowbahn

Author: Steve Erickson

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Unabridged: 6 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/14/2017

Synopsis

When the Twin Towers suddenly reappear in the badlands of South Dakota twenty years after their fall, nobody can explain their return. To the hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands drawn to the “American Stonehenge”—including Parker and Zema, siblings on their way from Los Angeles to visit their mother in Michigan—the Towers seem to sing, even as everybody hears a different song. A rumor overtakes the throng that someone can be seen in the high windows of the southern structure.On the ninety-third floor, Jesse Presley—the stillborn twin of the most famous singer who ever lived—suddenly awakes, driven mad over the hours and days to come by a voice in his head that sounds like his but isn’t, and by the memory of a country where he survived in his brother’s place. Meanwhile, Parker and Zema cross a possessed landscape by a mysterious detour no one knows, charted on a map that no one has seen.Haunting, audacious, and undaunted, Shadowbahn is a winding and reckless ride through intersections of danger, destiny, and the conjoined halves of a ruptured nation.

About Steve Erickson

Steve Erickson is the author of both fiction and nonfiction works, including two books on American politics and popular culture that have been published in ten languages. His work has appeared in such publications as Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times magazine. He is currently the film critic for Los Angeles magazine and the editor of the literary journal Black Clock, which is published by the California Institute of the Arts, where he teaches. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature.

About Malcolm Hillgartner

Malcolm Hillgartner is an accomplished actor, writer, and musician. Named an AudioFile Best Voice of 2013 and the recipient of several Earphones Awards, he has narrated over 250 audiobooks.

Reviews

Goodreads review by karen

…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 (w......more

Goodreads review by Cosimo

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 doppi......more

Goodreads review by Bob

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......more

Goodreads review by Ian

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 Amer......more

Quotes

“Malcolm Hillgartner’s narration is reminiscent of classic Twilight Zone voice-overs…The story’s structure (or lack thereof) initially may be jarring, but Hillgartner is a stabilizing presence. His commanding delivery makes the impossible seem plausible and guides listeners through a surreal journey.” AudioFile

“A beautiful, moving, strange examination of apocalypse and rebirth.” Neil Gaiman, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“[An] utterly Daliesque, polyphonic rhapsody of a book.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“It’s sad, and it’s droll, and sometimes it’s gorgeous…A polyphonic dirge for an America that has perhaps never lived anywhere but in the imagination of those of us who keep fighting for it anyway.” New York Times Book Review

“Provocative throughout, alive with laughter and surprising in the ways it stirs the heart…on the twinned themes of American music and history.” Washington Post

“The first novel of the Trump era. [Erickson] has written a battle hymn.” Chicago Tribune

“In this audacious futuristic novel, Erickson takes on American myth and history, scrambling mobile phone signals and playlists, pushing our imaginative borders along ever more shadowy fault lines.” BBC

“Jaw-dropping.” Granta

“Think Philip K. Dick on smoother acid and with a more up-to-date soundtrack, and you’ve got something of this eminently strange, thoroughly excellent book.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Erickson’s gem of a novel is equally challenging and rewarding, spinning out thread after thread of story before skillfully tying them together in a satisfying climax.” Publishers Weekly

Awards

  • Book Riot Pick
  • Los Angeles Times Best Book
  • New York Times Pick
  • Literary Hub Pick
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