An interesting premise, sci-fi adjacent, with much to say on the post-Trump condition in the US. I would shelve this with Tom McCarthy, Joshua Cohen and Don DeDillo.

Shadowbahn

Imagine the twin towers appearing out of nowhere and landing in the mid-west. Then, on top of that, Elvis Pressley's dead twin brother is inside...

That synopsis had me hooked - it was so unique and just sci-fiy enough to remind me of Stephen King! Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my hopes. It probably didn't help that I read this right around the anniversary of 9/11, and I kept wondering how I would feel reading this if one of my family members was killed in the towers. I'm guessing I'd be pretty bothered.

If you're looking for a unique story give this one a try, but unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

I am sorry to say that I started this book, put it down, and tried a few times to get back into it but never did. It just really wasn't my cup of tea.

I really feel like you need to be an adult to enjoy this one. So it's not for my high school library.

Steve Erickson has written a beautiful, trippy, take on parallel universes and the road not taken. What if the alternative suddenly popped up again to show you the consequences of your actions that could have been?

The writing itself was gorgeous and the story - at times hard to follow but worth the effort. I'll definitely be looking for other work by this author.

I decline to review this book. I could not understand the story or follow it very well. It may have just been me but it just was very odd and I couldn't connect to it in any way.

Completely bizarre premise but you just had to keep reading to see what was going to happen!

For those born after the fall of the Twin Towers it will be a work of fantasy: an exotic tale of a myth-drunk land populated by heroes and demons and jesters and troubadours, lost now to the ravages of time and the absence of empathy. Here, as in all Erickson's work, lies the paradox and dream and soul and passion of that lost country, carved by its shadow laureate out of the wall of sound the 20th century century left us in the negative space where the Twin Towers were.

What do Elvis Presley and the Twin Towers have in common? You don’t know? Dang it, I don’t know either. This story was strange and didn’t make any sense, and I’m still not sure what the whole point or plot actually was. I read it all the way through to the end hoping that I would get some grand, final conclusion that would made all the nutso-kablooey make sense, but alas, no. I can’t say that it was poorly written or anything, I just think it was maybe way over my head; like I missed a grandiose message that was being played between the lines, and I’m just too hard-headed to have noticed. Honestly, I truly believe it’s more that than the story. I just don’t think it was for me. Unfortunately, I can’t really provide any additional information, because even after having read the whole thing, I’m still not sure what happened or what it was about.

I received this story from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I just could not get into this book. It wasn't bad, it was just that the writing was style was hard to follow.

By the number of stars I gave this title, one might assume I felt lukewarm about it. I also didn't recommend it for purchase at the library where I work, nor would I advise patrons in the community where I work to read it. I did, however, find it deeply strange and entertaining. It was filled with pop culture references which I occasionally had to look up, and the author clearly has a deep knowledge of the music of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis, the White Stripes and more. I enjoyed the concept of an alternate time stream where one of the principal differences is that Jesse, Elvis" still-born twin, survived instead of the iconic Rock and Roller as well as the author's use of a relocated and rebuilt Twin Towers as a sort of purgatory. I was fascinated by the interconnected stories of the different characters and found it hard to put the book down, but I'm also fairly confident that the patrons of my library and the participants in my book club book would not care for it.

When Steve Erickson first came on the scenes I read all of his books, but then about 10 or so years ago I somehow lost track of him. His newest novel is a great return to form, and I'll have to go back and catch up on his backlist that I've missed. This is a crazy book, far-fetched in one respect, but couldn't be timelier in another. Called the first 'post-Trump' novel, it is both upsetting and oddly calming at the same time. No one else but Erickson could have conceived of it! Thanx to Netgalley for the ARC

Completely fantastical. What an imagination! This book was odd yet graceful and extremely engaging. A non-standard storyline wrapped around a whimsical narrative. First book by this author and all I can say is I want to read more!!!

This is a challenging, but very rewarding book (for some, for others it will be nothing but frustration and confusion). I hesitate to give too many plot points, not for spoilers' sake, but because they are bizarre and not the true focal point. This isn't to say that the goings-on or characters are not important, they certainly are...however, if I listed what was happening a reader who might otherwise enjoy the book might get lost in the bizarre-ness and not get to the beauty. A word of warning, however: beware of the reviews you read. I read one, in particular, that was dead wrong about the book (not in its opinion of it, but in its descriptions of the book itself--it is clear the reviewer read a portion, but not the majority of the book and attempted to extrapolate the rest. This is not a book that approach will work for. Sorry.). Just take reviews with a grain of salt---that's all I'm suggesting.

Shadowbahn is a meditation -- slightly prescient regarding this particular moment in American history, although that is probably my own sense of negativity regarding it clouding my vision. The book takes place in a slight future reality, fractures in the union have formed, and alternate histories that inform that reality abound. Perhaps a central plot theme is the following quotation: "..."shift Churchill or Lincoln off their place on the timeline by a hundred kilometers here or a hundred miles there, or a decade here or there, then everything turns out differently." But this isnt to say that Erickson merely changes a few data points and predicts the outcome...no no no.

Rather, the different outcome ends up a reflection of a world that could be...and yet a meditation on the world that is. Seemingly the soul of America is music and the history and pop-culture that surround the late 20th-Century are the canvas on which the tale is painted. Bring with you, potential reader, all the history and knowledge of this music as you can. It will better inform and delight you. I am certain that I barely scratched the surface (but did not have more time to devote to the research--I believe folks ahve created playlists to accompany the book). There are layers and layers of reference...all adding context to the upside-down image being presented. Not everything is an inverse, converse, or negative image--but it isn't all right either.

I don't see this book as moralistic...in that there is no "warning" from the author. Just as the events and characters the book is as much as it is not. It is art in its ability to provoke thoughts. It is artistry in its skillful and careful construction. If you are a reader who is game for some mental gymnastics, doesn't mind being lead blindly into something else, and is willing to think and reflect a bit in the process---this book will be for you.

Clever and confident, if not everyone's cup of tea.

What if the Twin Towers suddenly reappeared in the badlands of South Dakota some two decades after their destruction? And what if that reappearance was a harbinger of a thinning of the barrier between dimensions, where parallel universes begin to bleed into one another and have drastic impacts on certain seminal figures within those worlds?

What if American music and American history were inextricably entwined? How would changes to one influence the direction of the other?

These are the questions posed by “Shadowbahn”, the latest novel by pop surrealist Steve Erickson. It is a weird and wonderful book, a speculative near-future look at an alternate history that explores the powerful part played by music in the shaping of the world in which we live.

One day, 20 years after their fall was felt around America, the Twin Towers suddenly appear, looming large and whole in the vast emptiness of the Dakota badlands. Dubbed by the media as “American Stonehenge,” the Towers quickly become a pilgrimage site, one to which thousands upon thousands of people flock to see (but not enter) firsthand … and where many of these pilgrims hear mysterious music that is almost-but-not-quite familiar.

This America is different than our own, one marked by a past event referred to only as “the Rupturing.” This event has led to the notion of Disunion – vast stretches of America that have declared varying levels of sovereignty. It is a fractured country confused by the seeming resurrection of a particularly powerful precursor to that fracturing.

A young man from California named Parker and his adopted sister Zema – he white, she black – embark on a road trip to see their mother in Michigan. They are accompanied by a meticulously-curated playlist created by their famous father. As they make their way in and out of Disunion territory, they – and their playlist – prove to be unexpectedly connected to the events in South Dakota.

And on the 93rd floor of one of the towers, a man awakes. Jesse Garon Presley – in our history, the stillborn twin of Elvis – is seemingly trapped, unable to engage with the world outside. His journey takes him across and outside of history. We see Jesse encounter the embittered leader of a band that never got the chance to be the biggest band in the world; he’s a prominent figure at Andy Warhol’s Factory and meets a former senator from Massachusetts who never got to be the President as part of America’s Camelot.

Both pairs – Parker and Zema; Jesse and his unseen twin – embark on supernaturally-charged journeys through unfamiliar worlds tinged with familiarity. Both trips are driven by music – the ideas of music as well as the music itself. And both are unsure of the consequences inherent to their voyages, but neither can resist the pull.

“Shadowbahn” is unabashedly unconventional, with the sprawling storytelling of the book’s first half largely giving way to introspective and in-depth explorations of music both real and imagined. Erickson stretches and molds genre tropes to accompany big, existential ideas in forming a compellingly bizarre narrative that is in constant flux. The only true consistency is the constant engrossing readability of the tale being told. There’s a richness of detail rendered all the more fascinating by that which the author chooses to leave out.

In truth, it’s difficult to articulate the specifics of why this is a great book, but make no mistake … it absolutely is. Erickson forges connections between big ideas and big events, creating a textured world whose off-kilter sensibility somehow rings true even as surreal encounters and happenings play out. While the novel ostensibly has its protagonists, it isn’t really ABOUT them; it’s more of a deep dive into the viscera of the culture at large, using musical evolution (both that that was and that that wasn’t) as a vehicle to reflect on the ways that the past leads to the present.

The work itself offers whiffs of Erickson’s usual influences – a pinch of Thomas Pynchon here, a dash of Philip K. Dick there – but the end result is, as always, something completely and uniquely his own. The complexity of his ideas is matched by the deftness of his phrasing; that combination allows for work that basks in the surreal while still remaining anchored to its own reality. Erickson’s work has always pushed the boundaries of speculative fiction’s potential; his latest is no different.

“Shadowbahn” is a challenging work, charged with engaging ideas and driven by the unexpected. It’s precisely the sort of book that we’ve come to expect from Erickson, one of the most freewheeling and unfettered storytellers of the past 30 years. And while it might not answer all of the questions it poses, it’s the asking that really matters.

Insert any superlative that you like – odds are that “Shadowbahn” warrants that praise and more.

This is a definitely a challenging novel from both a structural and readability standpoint. I tried to be open to it but regrettably dnf because it just did not resonate with me. Erickson has chosen an interesting way- lyrics - to explore his ideas but I just could not ride along with him. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I can't quite figure out what genre this is but you should try it if you're interested in a literary experiment.

The book summary intrigued me but once I began reading the luster quickly faded. The book is a mixture of recurring characters, impressionistic moments, vignettes and alt-world timelines that never really mesh into one coherent dystopic vision. I'm not enough of an Elvis Believer to begin to understand the backstory about his twin. I had hoped for more and not found it. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I have so many questions.
There were many elements of this novel that made absolutely no sense. Take the one-page (two pages were a welcome but rare exception!) to start with. Like connected little snippets, each chapter was more of a scene - but then again, since they were linked in plot and narrative, why not combine them into one chapter? Secondly, what was the meaning of the titles - sometimes a traditional heading, sometimes a phrase seamlessly leading into the chapter proper - they were almost a poetry in themselves. Which genre should this fall into? Dystopia/Utopia (this was apparently a split America with a border running through Texas and a "Disunion currency", but this element was not introduced at all before 1/3 through), or magic-realism, or sci-fi, or metaphysical/supernatural?

Then again, there were certainly elements I could cherish: the twin (or pair) symbolism that permeated the whole story. Also the many alternative history story lines - a history without Elvis Presley, one (if I understood it correctly, I am not sure) where Kennedy never became president. The continuous importance of music in many forms. The clear typography of different segments.

Overall, however, too many questions remained at the end - there was no "solution". Or am I just overthinking everything since I am an English lit grad student? It was very modern and I certainly appreciate the basic idea - however, in the end, modern became ambiguous and unreadably vague. It is a novel for aficionados. Not so much for me.

I loved reading Zeroville and was hoping this would be as compelling but it just left me cold.