Zeroville

I search for writers like Thomas Pynchon every few months. Reddit, Discord and AI always point to the same set of people. None cut close to Pynchon. 

Readers often group Steve Erickson in the kind-of-like-Pynchon cohort. So, I gave Zeroville a shot. The book carries an endorsement from Pynchon on the back cover, which I took as a good sign. But Zeroville wasn’t anything like Pynchon. Perhaps that’s what makes Pynchon special; there’s nobody else like him. 

Removing my expectations, Zeroville didn’t do much for me. The writing is deceptively simple. The story was okay. But nothing grabbed me. On the upside, Erickson references over 200 movies in Zeroville. Someone listed them on Letterboxd. Now I have new recommendations. I am thankful.