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When there is nothing left to burn, Della sets herself on fire. At twenty-seven, she is stuck in the far corner of a parallel America on the verge of collapse, splitting time slinging tofu scramble at the local vegan-friendly diner and counting down the days until the impending birth of her brother Credence's twins forces her out of his house's leaky attic apartment. She collects pictures of historic self-immolators and stares out the skylight of her room while TVs from across the sprawl spew war reports and Presidential battle plans. A breakdown a few years back has sent splinters through her…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
When there is nothing left to burn, Della sets herself on fire. At twenty-seven, she is stuck in the far corner of a parallel America on the verge of collapse, splitting time slinging tofu scramble at the local vegan-friendly diner and counting down the days until the impending birth of her brother Credence's twins forces her out of his house's leaky attic apartment. She collects pictures of historic self-immolators and stares out the skylight of her room while TVs from across the sprawl spew war reports and Presidential battle plans. A breakdown a few years back has sent splinters through her buzzing mind, though something in her still hums with a mercurial urgency, flittering back and forth between fight and flight. Many of those close to her shuffle through the shallow rebellions - hair dye, sex parties, gluttonous self-absorption - of an ineffective counterculture, and while others join the growing people leaving their country behind for a life of escape and "eco-tourism," something quiet in her whispers the need to stay. But those bombs keep inching closer, thudding deep and real between the sounds of katydids fluttering in the still of the city night, and the destruction begins to excite her. What begins as terror threats called in to greasy bro-bars across the block boils over into a desperate plot, intoxicating and captivating Della and leaving her little chance for escape. Zazen unfolds as a search for clarity soured by irresolution and catastrophe, yet made vital by the thin, wild veins of imagination run through each escalating moment, tensing and relaxing, unfurling and ensnaring. Vanessa Vaselka renders Della and her world with beautiful, freighting, and phantasmagorically intelligent accuracy, crafting from their shattered constitutions a perversely perfect mirror for our own selves and state.
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Autorenporträt
Vanessa Veselka (Portland, OR) has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress, and a mother. Her work has appeared in bust, bitch, maximum rock 'n' roll, and elsewhere. Zazen is her first novel.
Rezensionen
Zazen felt like the future when it first appeared, but the present also like Veselka had created her own genre just to describe how we were and who we d become. Electric, visionary, I think it will always be a bellwether of a novel. Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night

Zazen is revolutionary. Gorgeously written, deeply intelligent, explosive, it is a vicious and nuanced takedown of the neo-liberal state, and the reactionary, identity-besotted left that opposes it. As forests burn and cities are gentrified and billionaires launch themselves into space, there is no better time for this story of terror and joy and the intoxicating freedom of resisting authority in all its insidious guises. Veselka is a genius, an outsider philosopher for the ages. Cara Hoffman, founding editor, The Anarchist Review of Books

Veselka s prose is chiseled and laced with arsenic observations. . . . Veselka makes a case for hope and meaning amid sheer madness. Publishers Weekly

Veselka honors the complexity of a young, intelligent generation at once confused and overwhelmed, but willing to enact change. . . . Zazen is a satiric examination of the real and perceived boundaries of activism and idealism in twenty-first-century America. Kenyon Review

Powerful. . . . A streaking flash of barbed satire and 21st century malaise. The New York Journal of Books

Vital and explosive, this book is not to be missed. Flavorwire

Zazen has a power beyond the satire and the clever reimagining of today s counterculture trends. It also has heart and soul. The Oregonian

Veselka grabs plot by the lapels and brings it to the forefront of the book without sacrificing the effectiveness of the more ethereal aspects of good fiction. The Millions

Vanessa Veselka is something like a literary comet: bright-burning, far-reaching, rarely seen, and a little dangerous. Tom Bissell

At turns hilarious, unsettling, and improbably sweet, Veselka s debut is, above all, a highly engaging, and totally unique experience, which will have you rereading passages and dog-earing pages. But best of all, in the end, Zazen is that rare novel which dares to be hopeful in the face of despair, and succeeds. Jonathan Evison, author of Lawn Boy
…mehr
Zazen felt like the future when it first appeared, but the present also like Veselka had created her own genre just to describe how we were and who we d become. Electric, visionary, I think it will always be a bellwether of a novel. Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night

Zazen is revolutionary. Gorgeously written, deeply intelligent, explosive, it is a vicious and nuanced takedown of the neo-liberal state, and the reactionary, identity-besotted left that opposes it. As forests burn and cities are gentrified and billionaires launch themselves into space, there is no better time for this story of terror and joy and the intoxicating freedom of resisting authority in all its insidious guises. Veselka is a genius, an outsider philosopher for the ages. Cara Hoffman, founding editor, The Anarchist Review of Books

Veselka s prose is chiseled and laced with arsenic observations. . . . Veselka makes a case for hope and meaning amid sheer madness. Publishers Weekly

Veselka honors the complexity of a young, intelligent generation at once confused and overwhelmed, but willing to enact change. . . . Zazen is a satiric examination of the real and perceived boundaries of activism and idealism in twenty-first-century America. Kenyon Review

Powerful. . . . A streaking flash of barbed satire and 21st century malaise. The New York Journal of Books

Vital and explosive, this book is not to be missed. Flavorwire

Zazen has a power beyond the satire and the clever reimagining of today s counterculture trends. It also has heart and soul. The Oregonian

Veselka grabs plot by the lapels and brings it to the forefront of the book without sacrificing the effectiveness of the more ethereal aspects of good fiction. The Millions

Vanessa Veselka is something like a literary comet: bright-burning, far-reaching, rarely seen, and a little dangerous. Tom Bissell

At turns hilarious, unsettling, and improbably sweet, Veselka s debut is, above all, a highly engaging, and totally unique experience, which will have you rereading passages and dog-earing pages. But best of all, in the end, Zazen is that rare novel which dares to be hopeful in the face of despair, and succeeds. Jonathan Evison, author of Lawn Boy
…mehr