Diana of the Commune

This summer’s successful resurrection of The University of Mars got me wondering if I couldn’t do the same for another older novel I’d once declared dead. I’ve just finished a second draft of Zarreich, but this novel isn’t ready for publication, nor may it ever be. In fact, not committing to publishing helped me loosen up and write Draft 2.

Rough Synopsis

Jim Donne, a recent college graduate, comes to live in a small town after the death of his mother, only to discover that all his memories have been wiped out. Now living with his grandmother, he kills what he thinks is a gang leader invading her home. But he panics, wondering whether he’s overreacted to a harmless student prank, and he cuts up and hides the body. Soon he finds himself under a ludicrously botched police investigation. Slipping into hallucinatory fevers, he tries to disappear into a stifling clerical job at a mortgage company in the ruined city of Zarreich. Yet he’s soon drafted into a secret commune of twelve dreamers in an underground university he can only faintly remember.

Revisiting a 2015 Condemnation

Oceanmouth, sixteen-year-old car mechanic

I bade farewell to Zarreich in a 2015 blog post. The 1981-82 rough draft was a psychic mess. Part of my reluctance to revise was that although I initially broke my internal censors and taboos, I finally lost my nerve and re-censored the book in its final four chapters, carefully editing the original shocking forces into a nice, tidy ending. I further censored myself with a 1983 second draft that truly defanged the entire work. But I never bothered to look at that disastrous second attempt when I began revising Zarreich this year.

I had to ask myself whether there was any heart in the rough draft, any spark. Could it be rebooted without censoring? And what about the “Roadblock” chapters already published as a story in my collection The Damage Patrol Quartet? I decided I wouldn’t reread the published story but just revise the rough draft again–so I may have actually improved some phrases in comparison to the published work, which in any case lacks the necessary references to other action in Zarreich.

Two things struck me in reading Zarreich this summer: the twelve characters of the commune are surprisingly well-drawn, and the settings are detailed: the desert, the plants and flowers, the village of Eicsine, the ruined nightmare city of Zarreich. There’s much color and description in this novel; it’s not just conceptual.

One of the book’s foundational energies is the world of dreams and their relation to reality. Jim Donne’s endless blunders through endless psychic minefields are really just symptoms of a struggle to attain that perspective. It might seem that his week and a half in Zarreich is one lurid mental breakdown, but maybe all that’s necessary to get his attention.

Draft Two Goals

1. Reclaim the rough draft’s energy, bringing out the original story as best I can, even if the final result is uneven. I think I accomplished exactly this!
2. Get rid of all traces of censorship, especially the original vapid ending. I think I succeeded here as well. I also made new and integrating connections, though I’m still not sure precisely how to end the book.
3. Cut verbiage and get the novel into my modern style. I rearranged the original thirteen chapters into forty-seven. I cut 146,000 words down to 100,000. It all reads much better.

Character Drawings

In preparing for Zarreich in 1981, I drew ink sketches of the twelve commune members. I’m still agog that all twelve capture the essence of each character. After scanning these and printing them on textured paper, I used them for colored-pencil versions. They came out well, a good marriage of 1981 and 2024 energies that emphasize the importance of all twelve characters to this story.

The upgraded Jim Donne

The original Jim Stunde

Chapter Titles

Here’s where they stand in Draft 2; I hope they add flavor to the novel’s description:

1. Jim Donne’s Arrival
2. Emily
3. Attraction or Friendship?
4. Regarding Emily’s Art and His Own
5. Dorch

6. Diana
7. The Investigation
8. Jim Nearly Confesses
9. Eric Comforts Jim
10. Nothing Superfluous About Her

11. Emily Taunts Jim
12. The Dilapidated Subdivision
13. The Doomboat Freeway
14. Jim’s Donation to the City
15. Cathedral Mortgage Corporation

16. Buddha Pong
17. The Defeat Lounge
18. The University of Zarreich
19. The Bathroom Elevator
20. The Corridors

21. All This Loveliness
22. Jim Cathedral
23. Larry Cathedral
24. Jim’s Research Project
25. The Shack Afterwards

26. Diana’s Own Sex Project
27. The Promise of Bed
28. The Awful and Cruel Party
29. Millionaires
30. Turtle Man

31. The Proper Grammatical Use of Dorch
32. Registration
33. Sea Girl of Cuxlacjs
34. An Inquiry into the Meaning of Tonight
35. The Bonfire

36. So I’ll Probably Marry Her
37. Jim and Oceanmouth
38. On to Drulgoorijk
39. The Roadblock
40. Polyhedrons

41. A Sad Journey to Work
42. Larry Helpfully Piles It On
43. The New Mail Boy
44. Maybe I’ll Let Him Live
45. Jim Finds the .38

46. The Transfer Center
47. Zarreichians

Steve Dorch: gang leader or student prankster?

Draft Three?

Maybe. But a third draft might imply publication desire. What I’d want from it would be a fresh overview of all these surging energies. Zarreich is still an experiment and I’m not sure if it should be released into the wild. Before making any decision I need time to assess this thing, and there are other writing projects like the Supreme Commander Laurie sequel I want to get to.

At times I’ve run myself down for past-tripping on this undertaking, as if I were merely taking on a knitting project, or academically playing with defunct issues. But I do feel important energy here.

copyright 2024 by Michael D. Smith

Homage Part 2: The Zarreich Enigma (2015 Blog Post)
The Twelve Commune Members