Zeroville, Steve Erickson
Zeroville, Steve Erickson
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Zeroville
A Novel

Author: Steve Erickson

Narrator: Bronson Pinchot

Unabridged: 9 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/12/2014

Categories: Fiction

Synopsis

On the same August day in 1969 that a crazed hippie "family" led by Charles Manson commits five savage murders in the canyons above Los Angeles, a young ex-communicated seminarian arrives with images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift—"the two most beautiful people in the history of the movies"—tattooed on his head. At once childlike and violent, Vikar is not a cineaste but "cineautistic," sleeping at night in the Roosevelt Hotel where he's haunted by the ghost of D. W. Griffith. Vikar has stepped into the vortex of a culture in upheaval: strange drugs that frighten him, a strange sexuality that consumes him, a strange music he doesn't understand. Over the course of the seventies and into the eighties, he pursues his obsession with film from one screening to the next and through a series of cinema-besotted conversations and encounters with starlets, burglars, guerrillas, escorts, teenage punks, and veteran film editors, only to discover a secret whose clues lie in every film ever made.

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 Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vit on October 22, 2021

The protagonist, Vikar Jerome is a huge fan of Montgomery Clift… “Everybody say, ‘Is he all right?’ And everybody say, ‘What's he like?’ Everybody say, ‘He sure look funny.’ That's… Montgomery Clift, honey!” The Clash – The Right Profile. Zeroville is a postmodern post-noir mystery of cosmic corruptio......more

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on October 01, 2020

”On Vikar’s shaved head is tattooed the right and left lobes of his brain. One lobe is occupied by an extreme close-up of Elizabeth Taylor and the other by Montgomery Clift, their faces barely apart, lips barely apart, in each other’s arms on a terrace, the two most beautiful people in the history o......more

Goodreads review by Oriana on May 15, 2014

On the whole, this was a phenomenal book. It's all about movies, but also about punk music, hippies, madness, murder, blowjobs, surfing, Joan of Arc, god, forgiveness, wonder, and maybe even love. It lost one star for the ending, which I wouldn't usually do—by "ending" here, I mean literally the las......more

Quotes

“Erickson pours his encyclopedic knowledge of 1970s Hollywood into this funny, unnervingly surreal page-turner…Every page will set off fireworks in any movie lover’s head.” Newsweek

“Erickson’s best…Terse, fanciful, dreamlike, and sometimes nightmarish, [a] remarkable novel.” New York Times Book Review

“Zeroville is about the nitty-gritty mysteries of the artistic process and…the evolution of an enthusiast into an artist.” Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Erickson has challenged readers with a fiercely intelligent and surprisingly sensual brand of American surrealism…Zeroville is funny, sad, and darkly beautiful.” Washington Post Book World

“Erickson’s literary technique impresses…Zeroville also has enough compelling intrigue to keep a reader pleased and puzzled.” Times Literary Supplement

“God I love this book…a feral and entertaining ride with cultural references, quirky koans, and a few surreal pit stops.” Philadelphia Inquirer

“Darkly funny, wise…[a] brilliant, often hilarious love song to film.” Publishers Weekly

“Although cineasts are the obvious audience for this atmospheric novel (it contains literally hundreds of references to obscure and classic films), others may find themselves falling under its spell, for its effect is much like that of a strange but very beautiful art film.” Booklist

Awards

  • Washington Post Best Book
  • Newsweek Best Book
  • Los Angeles Times Best Book
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