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Ever since my first novel, Zanesville, I've considered myself a kind of religious writer. I said a "kind of religious writer." Maybe it's because I was baptized in a water hazard of the Chabot Golf Course in the Oakland hillsI was baptized in a water hazard of the Chabot Golf Course in the Oakland hills. [...]

Novelist James Sallis reviews Private Midnight, by Kris Saknussemm, in the December issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction: "Saknussemm’s second novel, following upon the 500-page picaresque, post-apocalyptic satire Zanesville characterized by its author as “techno-theological post-American monster vaudeville. . . . Some readers will, I’m certain, find components out of kilter, horror elements overshadowing the embedded crime novel, Ritter’s interiority arrant; and some will object, on moral or aesthetic grounds, to such full-blown, graphic eroticism. But for me the balance of elements is wonderfully maintained. The detective work runs like a river through the whole, counterposing the weightiness of the fantastic; the biographical elements never go on too long, and fall in seamlessly; the teeter-totter of what is imagined or projected, what real, never falters. Private Midnight is, finally, a brilliant and brilliantly disorienting novel. Those sounds you hear beneath the floorboard? As with The Manual of Detection, they’re the sounds of a writer respecting and rooting deeply into the conventions— finding out what’s in there.I n interview, Kris Saknussemm has said: “I would always support the wild, deviant, and visionary work over the quiet, accomplished, and methodical.” And further along,

that “the greatest hope for American fiction that I see lies in the direction of ‘speculative’ fiction…mutant, hybrid forms.”What Greil Marcus termed that“old, weird America” is still with us, scouts. And it is perhaps never more with us than in fresh new work like Saknussemm’s."

Kris Saknussemm takes the stage at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn on Saturday, April 25th (that’s this Saturday), at 6pm for a rare PERFORMANCE of his new novel Private Midnight. Yes, he performs. And he’ll be joined by the very amazing jazz saxophonist Eric Wyatt as well as a TBA keyboardist. This is not your usual reading. This is Private Midnight, people! We'll see you there! Pete's Candy Store is located at 709 Lorimer Street (Take L train to Lorimer. Walk North on Lorimer towards Conselyea. Keep walking. Venue is on your left.)

Here's a review of Kris Saknussemm's performance earlier this week in New York: "After a break, Amy returned to the podium to introduce new friend, painter, sculptor, and acclaimed cult novelist Kris Saknussemm. His latest novel, Private Midnight, she said, has been described as an "erotic supernatural thriller set in a noir crime world of jazz, junkies, and shadows from out of time." The promotional copy, she noted in an aside, came with a pair of plastic handcuffs, which said it all, and Saknussemm owned to it being pornography more than erotica—based on his selection, I'd say it's definitely kinky (as the joke has it, they use a feather, not a whole chicken)—but also called it a love story between a police detective and a beguilingly mysterious woman. It was one of the most unusual presentations in the Series' long history, as Kris’s darkly atmospheric passages were interspersed with jazz solos on tenor sax by Eric Watts while Saknussemm treated the audience to a bizarre display of performance art, tossing along the floor sex paraphernalia, lingerie, and face masks, and at one point, whipped the floor with a cat-o'-nine-tails. (Freund's radio listeners, said Goldschlager, were missing out on the performance.)" - Mark Blackman, SF Scope.

Next stop on the Private Midnight book tour is Booksmith in San Francisco on April 10, Changing Hands in Tempe, AZ on April 15, and Rio Rita in Austin, TX on April 17.

Kris Saknussemm takes the Private Midnight show on the road this week with three big events:

Powell's Books - Portland, OR, April 2, 7:30pm

Cherry Bleeds Happy Hour at The Knockout - San Francisco, CA, April 3 from 6:30

Borderlands Books - San Francisco, CA, April 4, 3pm

Here's a new blog review on Private Midnight: "This is one of those books that no matter how many times you read it, something new will pop out at you. What you think is going to be a detective story quickly turns into a soul searching experience when Det. Ritter meets Genevieve. Past experiences, sexuality and the supernatural all come into play. This book made me ask myself how much would you be willing to go outside of society's norms to be your true inner self? What would you be willing to give up and change? Could you stay sane in the process or would you become another statistic? Could you let go of not only your mistakes, but your entire life to be reborn? If you want to be freaked out and take a trip into your soul you should read this book."