Christina reviewed Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson
Review of 'Shadowbahn' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I thought, after reading Zeroville, I was a Steve Erickson fan. I read These Dreams of You and it was good, but not Zeroville-good. Shadowbahn is interesting thematically, playing with disparate ideas and alternate histories. Imagine there's no Elvis, it's easy if you try. No Lennon or McCartney, and no JFK too. The highway is two parallel lines that seem to meet but don't, one the shadow of the other. One black, one not so black, two different origins, one direction, path unknown.
Structurally it's interesting. Each page is a chapter. The "writer" pov is left-justified, the omniscient narration is all justified, tall rectangular tower blocks.
"The music is unlike any heard by anyone since what was called 'The American century', when the predominant music of that century, so compelling to have spread beyond America, was the expression of and then rebuttal to America's self-betrayal--when the music was about …
I thought, after reading Zeroville, I was a Steve Erickson fan. I read These Dreams of You and it was good, but not Zeroville-good. Shadowbahn is interesting thematically, playing with disparate ideas and alternate histories. Imagine there's no Elvis, it's easy if you try. No Lennon or McCartney, and no JFK too. The highway is two parallel lines that seem to meet but don't, one the shadow of the other. One black, one not so black, two different origins, one direction, path unknown.
Structurally it's interesting. Each page is a chapter. The "writer" pov is left-justified, the omniscient narration is all justified, tall rectangular tower blocks.
"The music is unlike any heard by anyone since what was called 'The American century', when the predominant music of that century, so compelling to have spread beyond America, was the expression of and then rebuttal to America's self-betrayal--when the music was about America regardless of whether it came from America, whether it believed in America, whether it thought of America, whether it spurned or rejected America."
The music emanating from the Towers in the Badlands differs from listener to listener, from memory bank to memory bank. The post-2001 America musicscape is barren in the 'drivethrough' states, with only divisive talk radio carried by transmitter, so the playlist coming through a Toyota Camry trekking from Route 66's beginning to Highway 61's beginning is a curiosity piece to the denizens of 2021's fractured states.
Erickson had some writer-giants read and review Shadowbahn, and so I believe that its flaws are not structural, nor thematic. I read it with interest in a music history, music alt-histories, playlists. An Erickson novel doesn't have to be anything other than what Erickson wants it to be, and that liberates him to draw associations weird and wild. I wanted to feel entertained and a sense of passion beyond the crushing feeling of 'Musso and Frank' being a shuttered restaurant missing some of its letters. Decay of history, I get it. Death of American music, death of song, I get it. Jesse Garon Presley arriving in one WTC tower and time travelling to destroy his dead twin's recording, I get that too. Differing American locales with little in common with each other: southeast, Los Angeles, New York, a two-line mention of the Pacific Northwest city that produced Jimi Hendrix (it took London to make him bigger than an opener for the Monkees).
Maybe its only flaw is a subjective one, that it didn't entertain me. Maybe my flaw is from my expectation. Reviewing Shadowbahn I'm not the reader Erickson had in mind, but maybe you are. My rating should matter less to you than the review.