Zanesville

August 15, 2005
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.

November 1, 2005
A young man without a memory is found wandering through Central Park some time in the future when the United States is run by Vitessa, a large pharmaceutical company. Vitessa invents new diseases and then hooks the populace on the medications to counteract them, keeping everyone in a semidrugged state. Vitessa also encourages bizarre forms of cosmetic surgery and conducts various egregious lab experiments on animal and human subjects. The lost young man is dubbed Elijah Clearfeather by a cell of rebels and sent on an odyssey through this strange but vaguely familiar country, where consumerism and drugs rule along with fanatic religious cults -all controlled by Vitessa. Saknussemm's first novel (he has previously published poetry and short fiction) is a wild trip into a future in which life is observed through a haze of drugs -a future that is hungering for a savior or at least for some good sex. Written at a breathless speed with vivid and occasionally frightening imagery, this work is recommended for collections of experimental fiction everywhere." -Andrea Kempf, Johnson County Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS"

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2005
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)