I can't imagine there being anyone who doesn't remember where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, when they first became aware that the World Trade Centre had been struck by passenger jets being used as fuel-engorged missiles. I had emerged from my bedroom with one of those scotch hangovers that leave you functioning but sandpapery around the edges and stood there, rubbing my eyes and staring dumbly at a television displaying an eerily quiet shot of the southern tip of Manhattan...

Impossible to finish, despite all my efforts. Also, it didn't help that I chose the romanian translation. At times, you can clearly see the Google Translate portions in it.

As some other reviewes here, I absolutely love Jess Walter and I think he's one of the very best authors around (not only in Spokane, WA... in the world). This book has many layers, and - like other reviewers - I'm afraid I could fully understand these layers only after having read Walter's own comments about the book, or a goodreads review by a reader who attended an event where Walter explained this book. I'm not sure that is a very good thing. I think the big challenge with novels based on a

Many people have been turned off by my description of this book when I recommend it to them. If you want to read a sort of darkly comic noir-ish thriller about a cop who was at Ground Zero and who now may or may not be working for a covert government agency but can't tell because he has all these strange memory gaps, then you will like this book.

Not in recent memory have I read a book so enthralling, heartbreaking and with such deadpan humor. In what he calls his "9/12" novel, Jess Walter’s The Zero follows "hero cop" Brian Remy, who is trying to make sense of the world while also suffering from memory lapses. His journey is at once bewildering and mournful, and though I’m not one to go on about perfect first lines, Walter had me at the outset:They burst into the sky, every bird in creation, angry and agitated, awakened by the same prim...

This may be perverse, but part of the appeal of this book was in trying to figure out what makes it worthwhile despite seeming to be so ungrounded. As a benchmark for contrast, Walter’s award winner from a few years before, Citizen Vince, was unambiguously good —- and good in a straightforward way. It had a fully fleshed out, likable main character, a colorful supporting cast, and a plot that strode on with cocky assurance. The Zero did not. Brian Remy, in the lead role, was a NY cop in the afte...

I read Jess Walter's first four books in rapid succession in 2016 and loved them. He instantly became one of my favorite authors, especially after reading his 2 Detective Caroline Mabry novels and Citizen Vince. I don't know why I didn't go on and finish reading the rest of his work that year. There must've been something that distracted me. In any case, I decided to pick up where I left off, and I'm glad I did.The Zero is the best book I've read so far this year. It's a darkly comic, absurdist

The Zero (2006) by Jess Walter was chosen by my book group. Once again I am in their debt as it's unlikely I'd have come across this otherwise.The Zero is a powerful novel about 9/11, and specifically the period immediately afterwards. Brian Remy, hero cop and first responder, is our guide through the aftermath of the attacks. His consciousness is totally shattered and he lurchs between lucidity and "the gaps" - moments when it appears someone else is leading his life leaving him to play catch u...

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2006/...'Zero' sum game9/11 satire is one of year's best novelsBy Jenny Shank, For the CameraSunday, December 10, 2006The 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

I admired the Jess Walter books I’ve read previously (Citizen Vince, Beautiful Ruins, We All Live in Water, and especially The Financial Lives of Poets), but none of them prepared me for the level of gobsmacked I feel after reading The Zero, a nightmarish tale of a cop-turned-agent for a spooky government agency in the aftermath of 9/11.As a New Yorker who dealt with 9/11 up close (even though I assiduously avoided the immediate area, the smell was inescapable, and one year after the event I fou...

In the days after 9/11, New York police officer Brian Remy tries to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, but succeeds only in causing a sort of temporal brain damage, in which he flits in and out of awareness of his own life as though through staccato, disconnected snippets of film. Apparently recruited for some black ops anti-terrorist unit, he sporadically comes to his senses to find that he has gotten involved in some unpleasant and untenable situations – taking mysterious packages...

I've actively avoided the 9/11 novel. I read a couple in the early years, I can't even tell you which they were (oh, if I thought about it, I'd come up with the titles, but that's not the point) but they pissed me off and so I vowed to make a wide berth around the ouevre. Ian McEwan's chilling and intense Saturday was an exception to my 9/11 Literature Moratorium, yet Saturday took place in London in 2003, tangentially related to the attacks in the United States two years before. But the others

Political satire isn’t Jess Walter’s strong suit. The characters in this story are cartoonish mayors, police investigators and spies, none of whom are believable. In addition, Walter pokes fun at the post-911 authorities while ignoring that every one of us had become swept up in rampant patriotism and paranoia at the time. Remember being inspired by some of Bush’s overly simplistic speeches? Remember using gloves to open your mail? I suppose by the time Walter wrote this novel, we had all calmed...

my review: this book kicked ass.my top five interesting bits learned from having jess walter come to my form & theory class to discuss "the zero":1. nicole, the real estate boss, speaks in "bush-ism"s, and the bits you see in the book represent about a 70% reduction in those phrases from what earlier drafts contained2. wasabi marinated duck = WMD, and zingers = "yellow cake" = enriched plutonium3. some things in this book sprang from jess's experience as a ghost writer for bernard kerik, who is

Walter's fever-dream of a novel is unhinged, literally, from the "reality" that America experiences after 9/11, a tragedy never named in this strange disjointed meditation on our national psychology of paranoia and self-obsession in the face of horrible tragedy. The central character and narrator is a NY cop named Brian Remy who is having trouble with "gaps" in his memory, as he stumbles through encounters with a string of characters and incidents that may or may not be what they seem to be. Wal...

So, here’s my dilemma. Jess Walter is one of my favorite contemporary authors. This is based on “Citizen Vince” and “The Financial Lives of the Poets”, which I read and devoured with glee. His wickedly dark humor resonates with me and therefore I greatly anticipated reading this book. Sadly, “The Zero” did not live up to my expectations. The protagonist, Brian Remy, has these “gaps” of memory, possibly due to his having shot himself in the head in the beginning of the book. He forgets how he got...

This one has stuck with me like no other book this year. That’s Jess Walter for ya.

Tapping into my intellectual observer, I found much to admire about his writing, the rich and complex way he told the story, and his insight into the experience of a post-terrorism world. His characters were interesting and the wit piercing. The plot twist of the sisters were poignant (though kinda obvious.) Some of the ways he "painted the scenes" with his words were phenomenal.While his story-telling device was unique and I can see why he chose it, I had a hard time following the story. I'm st...

Guterak looked over. "Hey, you got your hair cut.""Yeah." Remy put the cap back on."What made you do that?""I shot myself in the head last night.""Well." Paul drove quietly for a moment, staring straight ahead. "It looks good."—p.15This is, as it says right there on the back cover, "a novel of September 12th." That on its own should be fair warning. Jess Walter does not shy away from disturbing ground in his 2006 novel The Zero—and so, perforce, neither will this review. Infectiously fragmented;...

This book is just good enough to make people think it's great because it contains so many gaps and twists and many and occasionally clever references to the events of 9/11 and its immediate aftermath to make you feel like there MUST be something IMPORTANT written on its pages, even though you can't figure out exactly what it is. Perhaps it is in the same genre as books by Kafka and Heller (I think closer to Vonnegut than to either), but in terms of quality, it's not in the same ballpark.The book...