Jess Walter's The Zero

Structure
The Zero is a detective novel—except it’s a broken detective novel. Brian Remy, retired cop turned undercover agent, is searching for a woman—March Selios—who may have been tipped off prior to biggest terrorist attack against modern America. If March had inside information and survived, she’ll likely lead Remy and the agency that’s backing him to remaining terrorist networks. The only problem is, Remy’s getting old and he can’t see very well. Streakers and floaters obstruct his vision. And, as a matter of fact, his memory is starting to go too. Sometimes he winds up with notes that he doesn’t remember taking, or in places he doesn’t remember driving to. The further he gets into the investigation, the muddier his project, and even his motives, become. By the end, Remy feels like he’s coming apart at the seams, and it’s unclear who is friend and who is foe. Worst of all, Remy’s been having these “gaps” recently. He experiences life only in short, flashbulb bursts that seem to begin and end as they please, which makes it difficult to figure—

Jess Walter: I was thinking about framing this as an erstwhile mystery, as a detective novel to solve. And I kept thinking about that word: solve and solution. Detective novels always move toward solution. What if I move toward dis-solution? What if, as I gather evidence, the detective is just fraying apart? He’s gathering stuff, and he’s just disappearing. And I love that. When I can see a story visually, then I feel like the structure and theme are connected. Those two things: the gaps and the detective gathering things as he’s just dissolving behind you, gathering clues and information that mean something but don’t really mean anything.

The Main Players

• Brian Remy. Protagonist. Retired-ish cop. Losing his vision. And also his mind. May or may not be working undercover for a secret counter-terrorist organization (or two).

• Paul Guterak. Brian’s former partner officer. Now, seen on a cereal box as a “hero cop.”

• March Selios. Formerly dated a suspected terrorist. May have had inside information and left the buildings the morning of the attack. Brian Remy’s target in his new undercover work.

• April Selios. March’s sister. Possible source of info re March. Brian Remy’s… girlfriend.

• Markham. An underdog agent working closely with Brian Remy to find March Selios and uncover remaining terrorist cells.

• The Iceman. A shadowy figure who often appears to bring Brian manilla envelopes.

• Edgar Remy. Brian’s son. Publicly and privately morning the death of his father, Brian, whom Edgar knows is still alive.

Paper & The Department of Documentation

In the aftermath of the attack, the Department of Documentation was birthed. In buildings the size of airplane hangers, every scrap of paper found at the Zero is scrupulously categorized and organized. Much of Remy’s investigation relies on paper clues—half-burned documents bearing March Selios’s signature, for example. And then there are the documents outside of the Department’s purview—Remy’s suicide note in the opening scene (“Etc…”), or the notes he seems to leave himself as the investigation intensifies (“Don’t hurt anyone.”). Which of the documents are helpful clues? Which are Remy’s attempts at self-control? And which are simply useless paper scraps? In the Department’s eyes, all documents have value.

Jess Walter: I think that was the thing I couldn’t get out of my head, these snowbanks of paper. And I brought some home and I would just pick them up and read them. There would just be somebody’s letter of rec for a job or a resume… 200 stories of commerce and life just blasted out. There was something just poetic and representative in that. And then the cleanup itself. I could not quite get it, just how ludicrous it all seemed. How it seemed just like ants… And so the paper was a way to get at how ludicrous it was. And then the documentation department. It was putting him to work for something that seemed so arbitrary and insane was a way to underline the insanity of the whole period—what it felt like. It just felt like we’d lost our minds.

Language

Language not used in the book:

• “9/11”

• “New York City”

• “Twin Towers”

• “World Trade Center”

• “September 11th.”

• “Ground Zero”

Despite that the book’s narrative catalyst is clear, Walter wrote the book without ever naming the event. At first, he says, this was a means of giving himself permission to write about it. He's not a New Yorker, and the attacks occurred far from his home on the West Coast (although, Walter was in New York on a writing assignment at the time of the attacks). By the end of the writing process though, he says, “I loved not having the specific, but instead this sort of ghostly version of it all.”

Scraps

The book’s form seems to parallel Walter’s experience in 2001 and onward. In the back of my copy of The Zero, there are scans of pages taken from the notebook Walter kept at the time. As in the book, Walter's notes are brief snippets of experience, decontextualized—some meaningful, and others almost nonsensical. (“10-05-01 Saw a sign: God Bless America. New Furniture Arriving Everyday.”) Throughout the notebook, especially in the years immediately after the attacks, during which Walter succinctly notes the U.S. response to the attacks, there is a clear absurdity to the events he is witnessing. They can be observed, but not made sense of. Later, the notes become more explicitly about the book, and the former absurdities become ideas for the The Zero. Present also are Walter’s reflections on his progress and the difficulties of writing the book. Always the notes remain in scrap form.

Walter: I thought it would be a straightforward book, but in the ensuing years what began to happen began to feel more and more surreal. And when I looked through my notebook there were these breaks. All of a sudden we’re at war with Iraq, and all of sudden the Dixie Chicks can’t sing anymore because they’re unpatriotic or whatever. I really did feel this sort of break from cause and effect. Like, we’re attacked by terrorists from Saudi Arabia so we declare war on Iraq, you know?

Looking back at my journals, at those fragments and that brokenness—it’s a moment where you recognize form and theme intersecting in this way. We are broken. We are fragmented. We are not connecting in some way… The further I got along [in the book] the more interested I was in this big social satire. Really underlining the big post-dramatic break we all felt from reality. I wouldn’t let [Remy] know what he was doing. I wouldn’t let him in on everything. He would just get clues like a note he had written himself, or blood on his shoes, or people telling him what a devious genius he was. If one guy can be both good cop and bad cop, he was only aware of his good cop self. And it was making him crazy.