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The Zero
by Jess Walter
by Jess Walter
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2006/...
'Zero' sum game
9/11 satire is one of year's best novels
By Jenny Shank, For the Camera
Sunday, December 10, 2006
The Zero by Jess Walter. Regan, 336 pp. $25.95.
This year saw the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the publication of several novels addressing them. Jay McInerney's "The Good Life" took a love-amid-the-ruins approach with its story of an adulterous affair between two volunteers at a Ground Zero soup kitchen. Wendy Wasserstein's posthumous debut novel, "Elements of Style," featured post-9/11 panic among New York socialites. But the best of the bunch is unquestionably Jess Walter's "The Zero," which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Although Walter doesn't name the city in which "The Zero" is set, it's clear he drew on his experiences working as a ghostwriter for a memoir by New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik in the days immediately following the attack.
The protagonist, Brian Remy, is a cop who was a first responder to the terrorist attacks. He's in bad shape physically and mentally, and as the book opens, he wakes up in his apartment, bleeding, his head grazed by a bullet from his own gun. He doesn't know if he was trying to kill himself or not — a nearby note says only "etc." He's boozing heavily, has streaks and floaters in his vision that doctors tell him are the precursor to a detached retina, and has been experiencing mental "gaps" that cause him to suddenly come to his senses in the middle of doing something — talking to informants, eating, sleeping with a woman, or even participating in a man's torture — with absolutely no idea how he got there.
This effect is brilliant on several levels: It conveys Remy's scattered mental state in the bewildering days following the attacks; and it provides for a lot of comedy, as Remy frequently turns up in a situation the "bad" version of himself must have gotten him into, such as cheating on his girlfriend with her scary Realtor boss. But it also makes "The Zero" action packed from start to finish — the reader is dropped into scene after scene without any exposition, and the reader is in the same position as Remy, trying to figure out what is going on.
Although the bewildering gaps in his consciousness make it difficult for Remy to piece together his life, it gradually becomes clear he has retired from the force due to chronic back pain (even though he experiences no such trouble) and has taken a job working directly for The Boss, a Kerik-like figure prone to delivering patriotic pep talks: "These bastards hate our freedoms. ... They hate our tapas bars and our sashimi restaurants, and our all-night pita joints." A federal agent gives Remy an assignment to investigate whether a woman named March Selios, whom they suspect had terrorist ties, truly perished when the buildings collapsed. If she's dead, the agent says, "then everything is copacetic."
As Remy trails Selios, a variety of absurdities ensue. His son, who lives with Remy's ex-wife, tells people his father died in the terrorist attacks, and concocts a performance piece for a school assembly based on his make-believe grief. Remy ends up at a monster truck rally where the starring vehicle "was painted red and blue, airbrushed with American flags fluttering in an unseen wind, with an angry-looking eagle perched on the hood and on the doors a long list of familiar names, cops and firefighters, Italian, Irish, and Latin, like the roster of a Catholic school football league." Remy discovers he's some sort of double agent trying to infiltrate a terrorist cell, sending a signal to other agents whenever he goes to a restaurant and orders wasabi-marinated duck.
Walter's irreverent take on the 9/11 attacks ultimately renders "The Zero" more moving and honest than any of the books bursting with patriotism and pieties on the subject. As Joseph Heller did for World War II with "Catch-22," Walter expertly captures the absurdities that ensued from the tragedy of the terrorist attacks, and in doing so has written one of the best books of 2006.
'Zero' sum game
9/11 satire is one of year's best novels
By Jenny Shank, For the Camera
Sunday, December 10, 2006
The Zero by Jess Walter. Regan, 336 pp. $25.95.
This year saw the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the publication of several novels addressing them. Jay McInerney's "The Good Life" took a love-amid-the-ruins approach with its story of an adulterous affair between two volunteers at a Ground Zero soup kitchen. Wendy Wasserstein's posthumous debut novel, "Elements of Style," featured post-9/11 panic among New York socialites. But the best of the bunch is unquestionably Jess Walter's "The Zero," which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Although Walter doesn't name the city in which "The Zero" is set, it's clear he drew on his experiences working as a ghostwriter for a memoir by New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik in the days immediately following the attack.
The protagonist, Brian Remy, is a cop who was a first responder to the terrorist attacks. He's in bad shape physically and mentally, and as the book opens, he wakes up in his apartment, bleeding, his head grazed by a bullet from his own gun. He doesn't know if he was trying to kill himself or not — a nearby note says only "etc." He's boozing heavily, has streaks and floaters in his vision that doctors tell him are the precursor to a detached retina, and has been experiencing mental "gaps" that cause him to suddenly come to his senses in the middle of doing something — talking to informants, eating, sleeping with a woman, or even participating in a man's torture — with absolutely no idea how he got there.
This effect is brilliant on several levels: It conveys Remy's scattered mental state in the bewildering days following the attacks; and it provides for a lot of comedy, as Remy frequently turns up in a situation the "bad" version of himself must have gotten him into, such as cheating on his girlfriend with her scary Realtor boss. But it also makes "The Zero" action packed from start to finish — the reader is dropped into scene after scene without any exposition, and the reader is in the same position as Remy, trying to figure out what is going on.
Although the bewildering gaps in his consciousness make it difficult for Remy to piece together his life, it gradually becomes clear he has retired from the force due to chronic back pain (even though he experiences no such trouble) and has taken a job working directly for The Boss, a Kerik-like figure prone to delivering patriotic pep talks: "These bastards hate our freedoms. ... They hate our tapas bars and our sashimi restaurants, and our all-night pita joints." A federal agent gives Remy an assignment to investigate whether a woman named March Selios, whom they suspect had terrorist ties, truly perished when the buildings collapsed. If she's dead, the agent says, "then everything is copacetic."
As Remy trails Selios, a variety of absurdities ensue. His son, who lives with Remy's ex-wife, tells people his father died in the terrorist attacks, and concocts a performance piece for a school assembly based on his make-believe grief. Remy ends up at a monster truck rally where the starring vehicle "was painted red and blue, airbrushed with American flags fluttering in an unseen wind, with an angry-looking eagle perched on the hood and on the doors a long list of familiar names, cops and firefighters, Italian, Irish, and Latin, like the roster of a Catholic school football league." Remy discovers he's some sort of double agent trying to infiltrate a terrorist cell, sending a signal to other agents whenever he goes to a restaurant and orders wasabi-marinated duck.
Walter's irreverent take on the 9/11 attacks ultimately renders "The Zero" more moving and honest than any of the books bursting with patriotism and pieties on the subject. As Joseph Heller did for World War II with "Catch-22," Walter expertly captures the absurdities that ensued from the tragedy of the terrorist attacks, and in doing so has written one of the best books of 2006.
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