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A review by meghan111
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
4.0
Issued by a small press called Red Lemonade, this first novel by a Portland writer strikes right to the heart of an alternate near future, where the one war is still going but the second war hasn't quite started, and the bombs are a daily fear but also could just be mostly in your head. The main character Della is in her late 20s, working as a waitress at a vegan-ish diner where the customers debate which country they should move to - Bali, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka? But the time for getting out might have passed, and the overwhelming immense hopeless dread is kind of in her head more than anyplace else, as she thinks things like this:
“When the first box-mall-church went up in the blackberry field I wanted some kind of rampant mass stigmata with blackberry juice for blood. It didn’t happen. It’s not going to. They win; they just roll, pave and drive over everything that’s beautiful: babies, love and small birds."
Della is at loose ends, with an abandoned academic career in geology and a more recent failed career working with her brother as a community activist (their greatest success came when they slightly delayed the building of a Wal-Mart). She is surrounded by all the trappings of left-wing culture, described accurately and lovingly. A wicked, precise sense of humor permeates the novel, mostly in sharp dialogue and satire of the small details of the characters.
The writing is the greatest strength of this book, which meanders a little in plot. Della starts calling in fake bomb threats and eventually falls in with a group of would-be left-wing terrorists living on a farm, but along the way several people drop in and out and we never really get to know them.
“When the first box-mall-church went up in the blackberry field I wanted some kind of rampant mass stigmata with blackberry juice for blood. It didn’t happen. It’s not going to. They win; they just roll, pave and drive over everything that’s beautiful: babies, love and small birds."
Della is at loose ends, with an abandoned academic career in geology and a more recent failed career working with her brother as a community activist (their greatest success came when they slightly delayed the building of a Wal-Mart). She is surrounded by all the trappings of left-wing culture, described accurately and lovingly. A wicked, precise sense of humor permeates the novel, mostly in sharp dialogue and satire of the small details of the characters.
The writing is the greatest strength of this book, which meanders a little in plot. Della starts calling in fake bomb threats and eventually falls in with a group of would-be left-wing terrorists living on a farm, but along the way several people drop in and out and we never really get to know them.