The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Adrift in a Vanishing City by Vincent Czyz
Matt Badura

Vincent Czyz. Adrift in a Vanishing City. Preface by Samuel R. Delany. Intro. and afterword by Vincent Czyz. Voyant, 1998. 256 pp. Paper: $10.00.

Adrift in a Vanishing City by Vincent Czyz (pronounced “Chez”) is a collection of nine interconnected fictions constellated around the love story between Zirque “Zee Gee” Granges and Rae Anne “Blue Jean Baby Queen” Kelly. Zirque—a world-hungry cavalier raging against Thanatos—is “trapped being who he is for eternity, tired of being Zirque, distracting himself from himself with a change of scenery.” Zirque’s restless nature impels him to continent- and bed-hop, while the love-locked Rae Anne recedes into the depths and learns to “live through the never-knowing of her man.” Within this basic yet inexhaustible framework, Czyz composes an Orphean song of desire and longing that explores the tenuous nature of human intersection and memory with a tenderness rare in experimental fiction.

Enhancing the pleasures produced by Adrift’s multiple narratives, Czyz’s primary accomplishment stems from the quality of his language. Indeed, Adrift is a book that rewards multiple readings and demands to be quoted, as the multilayered construction of Czyz’s prose enables Adrift to speak toward those depths of mind and memory that tend to elude language. In this sense, Adrift is ostensibly a work of prose poetry. As Czyz says, “This is the land of the guttural tongue, the great dead stone cities, the legend that has begun to lift itself out of the ruins, like those surreal paintings in which the images are raising themselves off the canvas, emerging from flat two-dimensional art into the four- or five- or 22-dimensional actuality we cannot keep track of anymore.”

Throughout Adrift in a Vanishing City, the city is a metaphor for memory—human and mythic—and its unspeakable reaches. Readers should rejoice that Czyz has explored this city and has returned from the underworld with a song to recover the vanishing dimensions of ourselves. [Matt Badura]


Interview with Founder Board of Directors Funders Submission Guidelines Dalkey Archive Full Catalog Current and Forthcoming Titles Recent Titles Review of Contemporary Fiction Special Library Offer Special Backlist Sale Stores & Wholesalers Academics Libraries Reviewers Context Casebooks Author Interviews Links Dalkey Archive News Events Newsletter

The Review of Contemporary Fiction Adrift in a Vanishing City by Vincent Czyz Matt Badura Vincent Czyz. Adrift in a Vanishing City. Preface by Samuel R. Delany. Intro. and afterword by Vincent Czyz. Voyant, 1998. 256 pp. Paper: $10.00. Adrift in a Vanishing City by Vincent Czyz (pronounced “Chez”) is a collection of nine interconnected fictions constellated around the love story between Zirque “Zee Gee” Granges and Rae Anne “Blue Jean Baby Queen” Kelly. Zirque—a world-hungry cavalier raging against Thanatos—is “trapped being who he is for eternity, tired of being Zirque, distracting himself from himself with a change of scenery.” Zirque’s restless nature impels him to continent- and bed-hop, while the love-locked Rae Anne recedes into the depths and learns to “live through the never-knowing of her man.” Within this basic yet inexhaustible framework, Czyz composes an Orphean song of desire and longing that explores the tenuous nature of human intersection and memory with a tenderness rare in experimental fiction. Enhancing the pleasures produced by Adrift’s multiple narratives, Czyz’s primary accomplishment stems from the quality of his language. Indeed, Adrift is a book that rewards multiple readings and demands to be quoted, as the multilayered construction of Czyz’s prose enables Adrift to speak toward those depths of mind and memory that tend to elude language. In this sense, Adrift is ostensibly a work of prose poetry. As Czyz says, “This is the land of the guttural tongue, the great dead stone cities, the legend that has begun to lift itself out of the ruins, like those surreal paintings in which the images are raising themselves off the canvas, emerging from flat two-dimensional art into the four- or five- or 22-dimensional actuality we cannot keep track of anymore.” Throughout Adrift in a Vanishing City, the city is a metaphor for memory—human and mythic—and its unspeakable reaches. Readers should rejoice that Czyz has explored this city and has returned from the underworld with a song to recover the vanishing dimensions of ourselves. [Matt Badura]

Search the full text of our books: