Zero Zone

This is a nicely written story and a pleasure to read. With that being said the author could have better organized the story flow and and had a more comprehensive ending. Don’t appreciate the author showing off is knowledge of words derived from Greek, Spanish, and antiquity. Depending who was his audience keep it in simple and plain language for the general everyday reader.

Perfect book for your next book club. Thought provoking but also very accessible to all readers. I loved this book – beautiful – thoughtful- enveloping read!

This book seemed to be a rather unlikely choice at first. I know very little about art and when presented with the idea of a thriller based on an art installation, I prepared myself for a snoozer. Man was I wrong. This book is so incredibly compelling, I had a hard time putting it down! The author has created a fascinating cast of characters, thrown them into a situation that is unique and disturbing and proceeds to tell his story with perfect pacing, a noir feel and an incredibly perceptive eye towards how art can influence both the creator and those who experience it.

The author perfectly sets the 1970’s scene and writes with intelligence and compassion. I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for a literary thriller with some unexpected artistic feeling and intellectual heft.

At its very best, ZERO ZONE was transcendent and moving. OConnors artistic flair for conveying installation art was mesmerizing. The protagonist, Jess, creates structures that in turn creates enigmatic rooms and spaces. Her pieces play with light, shadow, and zones that produce a sense of movementspecifically, a movement from one realm to another. Our temporal life moves into another space or placeone that is beyond that which we can typically see.

Jess is an artist that became frustrated with canvas and paints. Her installations were inspired by an unresolved grief of a fellow artist/ex-boyfriend. Little did she know that her followers were also attracted to her installations by their deep sense of loss and grief. Several of Jesss installations are believably and beautifully described. Moreover, the intensity of one piece, at a New Mexico former bomb site, became the central focus and pain of this story.

I wont go into the plot except to say that it takes place largely in the late 1970s, when Jess is in her 30s and her brother, Zack, is two years older. They lost their parents to a car accident when they were children and went to live with their bohemian aunt, who encouraged their creativity and imaginations. The prologue is past and takes us to the moment that Jess first felt a desire to recreate an ethereal moment where she moved from one place to another, outside time and space.

Later, as a successful artist, Jess became known for the intense emotions her pieces evoked in others, including people that arent too emotionally stable. It leads to a tragedy that shuts Jess down and depresses her into inertia. …she had only managed to create more anger and grief, infecting others with what she made.

OConnors characters are fully three-dimensional and their vivid depictions were credible and fertile. I related to Jesss anguish as well as the desperation and despair of her antagonist, Izzy. Izzy is only 16 when she causes harm to Jess at an art gallery; she is angry that Jess closed down her installation in the New Mexico desert after an incident in which the teenager was involved. (Readers will get to this on their own, without me spelling it out.)

There is one character, Tanner, who is particularized with vivid detail; however, I had a hard time believing him as a magnetic cult leader who is able to manipulate almost all men and women he comes into contact with, once he finds his confidence. That was the snag I was stuck on at times. He is the books Elephant Man, so to speak, but not a good person. As hard as OConnor attempted to paint him as a charismatic cult leader, I felt nothing but revulsion for him. And I dont think most people could lower their filters so easily and generously as the author attests. I was not convinced by the qualities he placed on Tanner.

Another problem I had was how the characters interacted to move the story along. Instead of organic development, it felt as if OConnor executed a certain chemistry or understanding between characters when he needed the story to mobilize in a certain direction. For example, and without spoilers, Jess meets people later on that she facilely apprehends, and I struggled to accept their easy nature together, how they swiftly fell into place to accept each other.

There were other characters who did this, and it seemed a ploy to progress the storyline. The relationships developed too quickly and artificially, a freshman writers pitfalls (and he isnt a freshman writer). Jess is a closed off individual with serious issues, and the mechanics that the author employed to open her up felt contrived. Her characters werent cookie-cutter, but the plot advancement from their interactions were too easily dispensed.

If I sounded negative, it is because I am a bit torn on my response to this narrative. The writing is lucid and elegant. Where it fails for me is how the unique plot cannily progressesa contradiction between the story and its execution. So it is OConnors logistics that arent credulous. The development of story into one coherent whole is where it breaks down for me.

However, I remained absorbed, too, much of the time. The metaphysical aspect to Jesss art, and OConnors prose, yielded a layered texture and simmering tone to the story. And the arid desert in the novel was enigmatic and vibrant despite its symbol of death. I closed the book feeling a sense of wonder and benevolence, beyond the story’s twee denouement. Even if the sublime was occasionally thwarted by the authors engineering of events, I came away with its resonant themes of loss, loneliness, and the ultimate search for connection.

The author has chosen a style for the book that I absolutely abhor, that of bouncing back and forth in time and locations. Each chapter (some as short as 2 or 3 pages) jump to a different time and sometimes even start to follow some other character. A very confusing style.

I made it through 88 pages of this 307 page book, so I think I gave it a decent chance, but it just never grabbed my attention and then when it did, it lost it again with another time jump, either backwards or forward.

I am giving it two stars, rather than only one, since the author is a decent writer and writes a good narrative. If you can get past the jumping back and forth, you might find this book enjoyable, unfortunately I could not.

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