Sep. 11 retrospectives overlook 'The Zero'

I wish I could go off the grid for all the Sept. 11 retrospectives. I don't mean to be insensitive to the magnitude of the event, but reminders of the importance of the 9/11 attacks strike me as almost superfluous. Perhaps my job as a media critic skews my perspective, it's not like it's a neglected subject. American (and global) culture has been wrestling with the meaning of Sept. 11 practically ever since, well, Sept. 12. From straight-up Sep. 11 narratives like United 93 and World Trade Center to more tangentally-related works ranging from Homebody/Kabul, Team America: World Police, The Guys,"Rescue Me," even "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart taking up the cause of the health benefits of first responders, the American tragedy has never been far from our minds.

Nevertheless, The Daily Dish and other publications have taken the occasion to argue the intriguing question "Has There Been a Great 9/11 Work of Art?" One work that seldom gets mentioned in these contexts is the provocative, explosive 9/11 novel The Zero by Jess Walter. The Kafkaesque thriller depicts hero cop Brian Remy, who emerges (almost literally) from the wake of the World Trade Center attacks. He has a head injury, possibly through a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and throughout the books he experiences leaping-forward moments in time. He'll discover himself in the middle of some kind of action or conversation, with no idea why he's there. And when he'll say something like "I don't know why I'm here," the people he's with will misinterpret his meaning as being something like "It's pointless for me to be here." It's reminiscent of both Memento and Being There (just a little) while still feeling highly original.

In his stretches of lucidity, Remy finds himself involved in a sinister conspiracy involving an unnamed "boss" who more than resembles Rudolph Giuliani, which turns into a fascinating, funhouse mirror version of the selling of Sept. 11. Walter even mentions a commercial for 'First Responder' breakfast cereal, a la Wheaties. Perhaps The Zero goes underappreciated because it's so dark and, frankly, feels a little unfair, but it still reads like a highly authentic expression of anger and disgust.