This is my review for the San Francisco Chronicle in October 1989:Thomas Sanchez writes with such grace and power that he can be forgiven for the sometimes blatant shortcomings that bog down this often brilliant book.''Mile Zero,'' Sanchez's third novel, is often bewildering, but it delivers enough nourishment to make it good _ even memorable. It's a scattered tale of strange events in the lives of an offbeat collection of people in Key West.Sanchez, whose first novel, ''Rabbit Boss,'' was an impressive chronicle of four generations of Washo Indians living in the Sierra, tries without success to imbue this book with a kind of mythic importance. Two chapters are actually printed on darkened paper _ an attempt to inject a sinister, otherworldly mood. Threatening notes _ signed by someone or something called Zobop _ a murdered goat, a murdered man and a toad with its mouth nailed shut never stack up as half so interesting as the more immediate concerns of a lively, sympathetic group of characters.The central character, St. Cloud, lives in a haze of rum, having sacrificed years on the altar of altruism. His thoughts, as reflected in the narrative, make the reader wish he'd grab a cup of coffee or sleep it off before he offers more insights into himself.At the outset, he contemplates Evelyn, the wife he lost, the woman he has lured onto her own boat ''for one last fling with the meat of nostalgia.'' Not a pleasant image. ''He knew Evelyn's passions had long since melded into dark crevices of female flowered gardens, where he committed the crime of bearing witness to the dragon of his jealousy.''Any writer can be forgiven awful writing now and then, but Sanchez is far too good to ignore the fingernails-on-chalkboard sound of this. Perhaps he is trying to do too much: He wants the force of St. Cloud's rummy ruminations to reach the reader, wants to set a very male tone in which Evelyn's relationship with another woman can't be presented neutrally, wants the prose to hint at the fraught-with-meaning reference points of tropical, volatile Key West.Like St. Cloud, who met Evelyn at Berkeley, Sanchez has migrated to Key West from California. He is clearly also struggling with the demands of talent.When he's working to live up to comparisons with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Sanchez's prose turns opaque and unedifying. But when he relaxes and gets down to the honest work of introducing his characters, his writing comes alive. One woman who frequents a bar is in love with Dave, the bartender; but nothing ever happens because Amigo, a cocky parrot always on Dave's shoulder, never offers the requisite whistle of approval.A petty hustler whom Justo finds killing greyhounds ''suffered a bad case of snorter's shoulder, an uncontrollable muscle spasm twitching his right shoulder like a baseball pitcher about to fire off a nervous spitball.''A beautiful young Georgia woman watches a man gun down her husband, who is jealous of the attention she pays to a TV program on cooking. She then greets the man. ''Her voice was shaky but she spoke her mind. 'Do y'all like French cooking?' ''Justo, a friend to St. Cloud, provides a kind of moral bedrock for the story. He's an honest cop with a taste for Cuban aphorisms. He's also a big man who excites the passions of Angela, the wonderfully lascivious and comfortable-with-herself bartender at the Wreck Room.St. Cloud has spent years dealing with his inability to stop the Vietnam War as a protester at Berkeley. The novel provides an interesting and deft look at how the war's legacy plays a part in diverse lives. The backdrop of portents, island superstitions and imminent hurricanes may never quite come together, but with characters such as these, Sanchez's failings almost don't matter.
Water, rum, barroom brawls, voodoo, pug puppies, crusty fringe characters... I had high hopes for this novel. Why didn't I love it? Something about the tone is off key (sorry, no pun intended) There is a kind of forced, overstated tinge to much of the prose of this novel; a pity and a sacrilege because some of the passages, as well as the general premise, are excellent. Too many didactic backstories, a tad too many overwritten metaphors, and especially, a wavering, undecided tone, somewhere between cosmic cool and grave profundity.That being said, there is much to like and admire in this novel, notably an astute rendering of Key West in the late 80's, and a reflection on the 60's Vietnam generation, 10 (or 20) years after.
What do You think about Mile Zero (1990)?
One of my all time faves in part because it's so over-the-top. Sanchez is an interesting writer who's had a varied career but has never really gotten much attention. This was supposed to be his breakthrough book; VANITY FAIR even did a profile of him in 89 to promote the book. Alas, it wasn't that successful, although it's certainly TS's best-known. While people tend to consider Tom McGuane's NINETY-TWO IN THE SHADE the "quintessential" Key West novel, I'd put my money on this baby. Like the island, it's often loud, tropical, gaudy, profane, druggy, horny, multicultura, and even sinister. There's a plot here involving a disaffected Vietnam vet, a Cuban cop, a Haitian refugee, and a mysterious drug runner who may or may not be the devil in disguise. Not a whit of that matters. It's all about the style---dense, lyrical, descriptive, beautiful. The ending line is one that any writer would wish s/he could come up with. Some will inevitably consider the writing florid, but words bloom as much as flowers do in the tropics, and not everybody in the world needs to be spartan and niggardly when it comes to a good sentence.
—Kirk
