Steve Erickson’s many novels read as if written for the readership of other worlds—worlds not different from ours so much as parallel, the real turned upside-down, inside-out, and yet centered, inevitably, around Los Angeles. With Zeroville, Erickson gives us his tightest establishing shot yet.

On the surface, Blue-Eyed Devil: A Road Odyssey Through Islamic America seems like a "let's get to know the neighbors" punk-rock companion piece to Paul Barrett's American Islam. If that doesn't quite describe it, it's because Michael Muhammad Knight has little interest in finding the familiar in the exotic, preferring instead to make the ordinary seem strange.

. . . most people don't know what a pit bull is and they certainly don't have any idea of their history

...the act of translation itself should be subversive

I was afraid of coming off like a fool, which is why I took notes in the first place, and why, probably I was invited to participate: comic relief

Meeting with Steve Geng at the Moonstruck Diner in Chelsea, I am struck by how quickly he laughs at himself and the long silences his sister, Veronica, brings to our table as Steve remembers losing her. Thick as Thieves is Steve's memoir, and his tribute to Veronica.