Our Ecstatic Days - by Steve Erickson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In the waning summer days, a lake appears almost overnight in the middle of Los Angeles. Out of fear and love, a young single mother commits a desperate act: convinced that the lake means to take her small son from her, she determines to stop it and becomes the lake's Dominatrix-Oracle, "the Queen of the Zed Night." Acclaimed by many critics as Steve Erickson's greatest novel, Our Ecstatic Days takes place on the forbidden landscape of a defiant heart.

Review Quotes

"Our Ecstatic Days may be a great one."

-- David Bowman, Bookforum

"Erickson and his latest novel are clearly sui generis. Our Ecstatic Days is an extravagant, outsized accomplishment...in which chaos almost -- but never quite -- wins, in which primal human connections keep us going in the face of catastrophic loss. A baroque, visionary novel rooted in fundamental truths."

-- Bill Sheehan, The Washington Post Book World

"Huge scope...invention, feeling and humor...with love as an abyss of motion, terror, ecstasy. The richest of Erickson's visions to date."

-- Joseph McElroy, The Believer

"There's no one in the world writing like Steve Erickson."

-- Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review

About the Author

Steve Erickson is the author of six other acclaimed novels -- including Days Between Stations and Tours of the Black Clock -- as well as two books about American politics and popular culture. The editor of the literary magazine Black Clock, he also writes about film for Los Angeles and teaches at CalArts