Saugus to the Sea; Them: Adventures with Extremists

saugus to the sea

by Bill Brown

(Smart Cookie Publishing,

186 pages, $12.95)

Although there are human characters in Saugus to the Sea, they play the barest of supporting roles; the book's focus is the relationship between its first-person narrator and the American urban complex--represented, as it so often is, by Los Angeles.

Arranged in dozens of two- and three-page chapters, Saugus reads less like a novel than a collection of short-shorts or personal essays linked by recurrent motifs and themes. The book is nominally a madcap mystery about an introverted underground-sprinkler repairman who discovers pieces of a grand conspiracy involving Arbor Day insurrectionists, underground irrigation systems, earthquakes and (just maybe) the flashing light on top of the Capitol Records building.

To its credit, the book does not devolve into mannered kookiness despite all this. Its elements don't demand to be taken too literally; as metaphors, they form an elegant network of signification. Water, fault lines, maps, flora and architecture are symbols that present urban life and urban history as an interplay of tensions between order and disorder, deliberateness and chance. This is a mystery story (kind of) but the riddle at hand is the whole, vast life of a city.

The book's cerebral qualities--ideas and historical tidbits are its strongest players, people and plot its weakest --invite comparisons to William Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, another confessional work whose narrator derives a remarkable and contagious sense of wonderment from his surroundings. This energy permeates Brown's writing and makes it a pleasure. Brown got his start in travel zines and it shows: His genuine love for and knowledge of his subject saves this book from the cynicism and archness that characterize many other chronicles of alienation in the surreal City of Quartz. Katherine Sharpe

them: adventures with extremists
by Jon Ronson
(Simon & Schuster,
320 pages, $24 )

Ever striving for an open mind, a healthy dose of paranoia really brightens my day, and Jon Ronson's hilarious encounters with all manner of conspiracy theorists provides a lifetime's worth of alarm.

Like many, I am credulous enough to believe that aliens just may be posing as Pentagon officers; that poisonous, mind-eating chem-trails rain secretly upon us every night; that Papists have taken complete control of the European Union; and that alien/human breeding schemes are already under way in the Nevada desert. Until reading Ronson's book, however, one question still had me fretting well into the night: Is the world truly ruled by an elite that revitalizes itself with an annual Pagan Owl Burning ceremony in Northern California?

Them may not adequately answer this question for True Believers, but Ronson's quest cracks the very core of the fringe. Chased off the grounds of an exclusive Portuguese hotel during the annual meeting of the highly secretive Bilderberg Group, he went on to interview survivors of Waco and Ruby Ridge; attend encounter groups with the new PR-driven face of the KKK; befriend a charming point man advocating an Islamic Jihad against England; and speak at length with, my personal favorite, David Ickes, who believes quasi-human descendants of a 12-foot-tall lizard species walk amongst us--George Bush Sr. and Jr. being two of the most prominent.

Despite all threats, Ronson never loses his sense of humor or wonder. One of the many great strengths of this book is that he lets the Fringers speak for themselves, all the while letting out enough rope for a proper hanging. Steven Fidel

WWeek 2015

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