Steve Erickson Reads SHADOWBAHN at Skylight Books

If you live anywhere near Southern California, I highly recommend making a trek to Skylight Books in Los Angeles on the evening of February 16th to see Steve Erickson reading from his latest book, SHADOWBAHN, perhaps his strangest novel to date (and coming from someone who's read every single one of Erickson's fabulist novels from 1985's DAYS BETWEEN STATIONS onward, that's saying quite a lot).  The plot is almost impossible to encapsulate, but here we go:  Two decades after their sudden destruction, the twin towers of the World Trade Center mysteriously reappear in the middle of the South Dakota Badlands and at once become a tourist attraction for the curious (rather like the poor dead titan in J.G. Ballard's classic short story, "The Drowned Giant," which can be found in Ballard's 1964 collection, TERMINAL BEACH).  This situation is made even more peculiar by the fact that the 93rd floor of the South Tower is occupied by Elvis Presley's dead twin, Jesse.  Jesse's suicidal leap from the rooftop of the South Tower kicks off an Alice-in-Wonderland tumble into a Womackian alternate universe where Elvis never existed, The Beatles languished in obscurity, and a wheelchair-bound JFK was shot by Valerie Solanas at Andy Warhol's Factory in New York on June 3rd, 1968.  Yes, indeed... if you want your brain pulled in multiple directions at once, look no further than SHADOWBAHN. 

Skylight Books is located at 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027.  Erickson's reading begins at 7:30 PM.  For more information, click HERE.