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Days Between Stations: A Novel
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Shades of Magic Realism
This magical book by a Los Angeles writer forms a perfect introduction to the American appropriation of Magic Realism. It's definitely not a "futuristic book," but one that saturates Garcia Marquez with the mentality of today's southern California.
Rating: - An eerie, arhythmic mess that I could not put down.
When I finished this novel I didn't know if I loved it or hated it. I had never had that reaction to a work of literature before. I did know that I could not put it down, and that means a lot to me. I needed to know what happened to Lauren and Michel.
If a book doesn't capture me in the first twenty pages or so I tend not to stick with it- I think writers either have it or they don't. This book pissed me off but also made me track down all his other novels- a singular experience for me. So far I have been equally elated (The sea came in at midnight) and dismayed (Rubicon Beach) by his works, often in the same novel (Arc d'X).
I'm not only discussing "Days Between Stations," here...
Now then- as regards Erickson: his writing is lush, highly rich and poetic. He weaves astute psychological insights in with chaotic and seemingly random hyper-conscious details when describing the inner workings of those who populate his works. The characters and worlds that Erickson crafts veer from heart-wrenching and lovingly-detailed to maddeningly, utterly book-tossingly, non-sensical. Out of nowhere- the most surreal occurences materialize and take over the narrative, often destroying my patience and aggravating the living hell out of me.
Yet there is a pay-off. He weaves fantastic stories and he does it in a way that is wholly his own- no one writes like Erickson. For all his flights of post-modern fancy I can't help but get wrapped up in the intricately-realized, labyrinthine details of the lives in his stories. days Bewteen stations is a great example of this- the chapters on the making of the silent film and the betrayal that finalizes it... I was stunned. For all Erickson's words (and he is wordy as hell) there is something still lurking between the musings and the poetry and the cast of strange, naked souls that inhabit his dystopian visions of the world as it was and will be... I can never put my finger on this pulse of his and that wil always bring me back to him. It really angers me at times- because I think a great deal of the wreckless way he imposes discontinuity and hellish non-sense is, well, kinda empty and pointless. But it makes for a ride like no other.
A caveat- I tend not to go for woefully pomo writers and Erickson is cerainly one of those. I stormed away from "Arc D'X" (despite LOVING the first fifty-odd pages) God-knows how many times before finishing it. Still haven't finished Rubicon Beach. His interviews (there are many online) don't really clarify things but I suspect he wants it that way.
I reccommend him.
Rating:  - A deep first novel
Like other writers who cross their hard-edged fiction with elements of surrealism and sci-fi, Steve Erickson keeps you guessing about the realities and invites you into a world of motives. The three main characters are living through a world cataclysm, which only heightened my interest in them. Jason, a professional cyclist, moves from race to race, and affair to affair, with no thought towards his wife, who falls in love with an amnesiac stranger, Michel. I know it sounds like a soap opera, but no soap could implore the sensual depth in Erickson's writing, or give the book such a sad and longing ending. A great place to start reading Erickson's work.
Rating: - Haunting
Erickson's gift for seamlessly weaving multiple characters and myriad sub-plots, brilliantly unifying the apparent chaos of his worlds, can be breathtaking. In Erickson's visions, there is always a sense of order, of fate that lies beneath the anarchy and madly pulsating landscapes that he creates.
I have begun to accept that, like all great art, I will never have any assurance that my understanding of this book is what the artist actually intended. Perhaps that was his intention all along...
I am hesitant to begin a new book for several days...I need some time to let this one sink in. I find that this reaction is becoming a habit with all Erickson novels that I complete. This book, like "The Sea Came in at Midnight", continues to haunt me.
Rating: - Must Read for Screenwriters
Erickson championed cinemagraphic-styled narrative through all of his works but especially in Days Between Stations. As contemporary screenwriters venture to adopt powerful time inversions and thread their viewer's consiousness through the colorful tapestries of the subconcscious, works such as Erickson's should find their way to the top of any required list of literary influence.
Days Between Stations has special potency for screenwriters because of its inclusion of light and film as subject matter in the sub-plot of the story.
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