Our Ecstatic Days (SIGNED)

Who but Erickson would take two characters, Louise Blumenthal and Kristin, from his last novel, The Sea Came in at Midnight (1999), to make them a single character, then split them apart again? Erickson s stock in trade is duality, surrealism, and lyrical language, and so it is in this tale that loops back and forth through the twentieth century. Back from Tokyo, Kristin Blumenthal gives birth to a beautiful baby boy, Kirk (for Kierkegaard, whose twin sister, Bronte, is still undelivered) just as a lake starts rising from the center of L.A. to flood the city. But with the joy of the child comes the fear of losing him, the greatest loss known to humanity, and Kristin does lose her young son, only to discover another dual world years later. There are multiple connections through the years between major characters. Unusual textual format, broken chronology, and alternate realities are Erickson trademarks, but what gives this unusual humanity is the Hotel of the Thirteen Losses showing, in its last room, the unendurable loss. Michele Leber