A Year in Reading: Dan Sinykin

I’ve been squatting in the firebombed (was it?) city of Bellona with Samuel Delany in spare pockets of time for what feels like years. (It’s been weeks.) (Not even through the first quarter.) Structural integrity has been compromised. Electricity is spotty. We read the local paper by candlelight for the hot goss. At least the gas works. Dhalgren is all the right kinds of weird: the prose bends funny; bodies body; everyone’s sneaking off to pick their nose—and eat it. Much is opaque. The protagonist doesn’t even know his name.