Andrew Zornoza

Andrew Zornoza is the author of the novel Where I Stay, published by Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2009. Zornoza’s short fiction and essays have appeared in BOMB, Gastronomica, Confrontation, and CapGun, among many others. He was educated at Princeton University and teaches at Parsons Design & Technology MFA program, Gotham Writer’s Workshop and at the ASA Institute.  He is a contributing editor to the arts journal Helping Orphans Worldwide (H.O.W.).

Andrew Zornoza

Andrew Zornoza is the author of the novel Where I Stay, published by Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2009. Zornoza’s short fiction and essays have appeared in BOMB, Gastronomica, Confrontation, and CapGun, among many others. He was educated at Princeton University and teaches at Parsons Design & Technology MFA program, Gotham Writer’s Workshop and at the ASA Institute.  He is a contributing editor to the arts journal Helping Orphans Worldwide (H.O.W.).

Where I Stay
by Andrew Zornoza

Fiction. 108 pages. Paperback. 2009

Where I Stay
by Andrew Zornoza

Fiction. 108 pages. Paperback. 2009

In the process of constantly disappearing, the unhinged, unmoored and unnamed narrator of Where I Stay travels through a cracked North America, stalked by his own future self and the whispers of a distant love. From Arco, Idaho to Mexico City, he flees along the highways and dirt roads of a landscape filled with characters in transition: squatters, survivalists, prostitutes, drug runners, skinheads, border guards and con-men. Where I Stay is a meditation on desperation, identity, geography, memory, and love—a story about endurance, about the empty spaces in ourselves, about the new possibilities we find only after we have lost everything.

Really strange and beautiful use of photography in experimental literature…. Compact prose set to the rhythm of poetry…. Spare and sprawling interpretation of dislocated loneliness in being unmoored, in drifting away from connections and places until you become stuck somewhere again. (Allison Meier, HyperallergicRefreshing, pitch-perfect kind of steering that is innovative not only for the genre it might get called into, but for experiential and language-focused texts of every stripe…. Meditative and rhythmic in the mind of Mary Robison mashed with William Vollmann…. Unforgettable. (Blake Butler, HTML GiantWith a languorous but precise lyricism…. [Zornoza] is a cartographer of loneliness, doubt, and fear, one that fearlessly delineates the stark realms of disappointment, unrequited love, and unfulfilled dreams. (John Madera, Rain Taxi via Powell’s) Squarely situated between the ethos of Jack Kerouac and Walker Evans. Where I Stay is a novel of almost pure voice, told in diaristic fragments coupled with photographs whose captions are drawn from other moments in the time of the narrative. . . . a young man moving aimlessly through an America moving violently through him. In and out of cars, of the arms of lovers, looking for someone he lost, for a moment of rest. . . A year passes, days and weeks omitted, blank spaces where the lives of criminals, kind families, abandoned dogs and factory workers continue to be lived. . . . Those who filled his world he can now find “only in the cracks.” (The Review of Contemporary Fiction) Consider Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay a loose retelling of Werner Herzog’s 1974 march from Munich to Paris to try to save a dying friend—only set in the arid, ominous nowherescape of the contemporary Southwest and composed by a strung-out W.G. Sebald. Zornoza dedicates the book to “all those he’s lied to” before prosecuting a narrative in stark photographs and crisp, lurid text that will make you wish we had more liars like him in the world. (Matthew Derby) A gifted journey through borderlands between text and image, glassy prose and suggestively indirect prose poem, facts and fictions, sanity and the other thing, but most of all those borderlands crossed and recrossed on the West’s back roads—the kind that always exist just off the grid, just below the radar, and always in beautiful pieces. (Lance Olsen) Zornoza’s prose has range, which is what makes this book at times so beautiful and at other times so devastating. . . . Originality, vision, risks, and experimentation to give you back this country as it is: flawed, fractured, hypocritical, greedy, beautiful, breathtaking, mesmerizing, and the constant dialect of a lie and a truth. (Steven Karl) Zornoza finds meaning not only in the land and in travel, but conveys what is derived via both ordinary moments and dysfunctional situations…. [His] use of fragments of image and narration is expert. The movement of people and lives; chance meetings between strangers destined never to cross paths again; moments that can never be recreated; the uncertainty of people, place, relationships – all collide across culture and class, gender and race to form an anthem of displacement…. (Cynthia Reeser, NewPagesAs haunting as it is gritty, Where I Stay has the feel of an impressionist watercolor and underscores the value of the small press in literary culture. Indeed, I hesitate to simply call it a book; its ambitions, beautifully realized, make it a hybrid of textual and visual arts. (Small Press Reviews)

Really strange and beautiful use of photography in experimental literature…. Compact prose set to the rhythm of poetry…. Spare and sprawling interpretation of dislocated loneliness in being unmoored, in drifting away from connections and places until you become stuck somewhere again. (Allison Meier, HyperallergicRefreshing, pitch-perfect kind of steering that is innovative not only for the genre it might get called into, but for experiential and language-focused texts of every stripe…. Meditative and rhythmic in the mind of Mary Robison mashed with William Vollmann…. Unforgettable. (Blake Butler, HTML GiantWith a languorous but precise lyricism…. [Zornoza] is a cartographer of loneliness, doubt, and fear, one that fearlessly delineates the stark realms of disappointment, unrequited love, and unfulfilled dreams. (John Madera, Rain Taxi via Powell’s) Squarely situated between the ethos of Jack Kerouac and Walker Evans. Where I Stay is a novel of almost pure voice, told in diaristic fragments coupled with photographs whose captions are drawn from other moments in the time of the narrative. . . . a young man moving aimlessly through an America moving violently through him. In and out of cars, of the arms of lovers, looking for someone he lost, for a moment of rest. . . A year passes, days and weeks omitted, blank spaces where the lives of criminals, kind families, abandoned dogs and factory workers continue to be lived. . . . Those who filled his world he can now find “only in the cracks.” (The Review of Contemporary Fiction) Consider Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay a loose retelling of Werner Herzog’s 1974 march from Munich to Paris to try to save a dying friend—only set in the arid, ominous nowherescape of the contemporary Southwest and composed by a strung-out W.G. Sebald. Zornoza dedicates the book to “all those he’s lied to” before prosecuting a narrative in stark photographs and crisp, lurid text that will make you wish we had more liars like him in the world. (Matthew Derby) A gifted journey through borderlands between text and image, glassy prose and suggestively indirect prose poem, facts and fictions, sanity and the other thing, but most of all those borderlands crossed and recrossed on the West’s back roads—the kind that always exist just off the grid, just below the radar, and always in beautiful pieces. (Lance Olsen) Zornoza’s prose has range, which is what makes this book at times so beautiful and at other times so devastating. . . . Originality, vision, risks, and experimentation to give you back this country as it is: flawed, fractured, hypocritical, greedy, beautiful, breathtaking, mesmerizing, and the constant dialect of a lie and a truth. (Steven Karl) Zornoza finds meaning not only in the land and in travel, but conveys what is derived via both ordinary moments and dysfunctional situations…. [His] use of fragments of image and narration is expert. The movement of people and lives; chance meetings between strangers destined never to cross paths again; moments that can never be recreated; the uncertainty of people, place, relationships – all collide across culture and class, gender and race to form an anthem of displacement…. (Cynthia Reeser, NewPagesAs haunting as it is gritty, Where I Stay has the feel of an impressionist watercolor and underscores the value of the small press in literary culture. Indeed, I hesitate to simply call it a book; its ambitions, beautifully realized, make it a hybrid of textual and visual arts. (Small Press Reviews)

Andrew Zornoza in the Media

Andrew Zornoza's Where I Stay reviewed at Hyperallergic

"A really strange and beautiful use of photography in experimental literature," writes Allison Meier, Where I Stay (TSky Press, 2009) is "compact prose set to the rhythm of poetry," a "both spare and sprawling interpretation" of "dislocated loneliness in being unmoored, in drifting away from connections and places until you become stuck somewhere again."

Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay reviewed at The Black Sheep Dances

The Black Sheep Dances reviews Andrew Zornoza’s *Where I Stay* (Tarpauin Sky Press): "This definitely isn't the scenic route: Zornoza's travels take him to the edge of urban life, mainly concentrating on the rough roads and deserted highways that have been left in the past by time and progress. The landscape is grey, gritty, and jagged: much like the words he chooses to describe his interactions and his reactions to it all.... An excellent collection.... It reminded me somewhat of Sam Shepherd's Day Out of Days."

Rain Taxi, via Powell’s, reviews Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay

At Powell's, via Rain Taxi, John Madera reviews Andrew Zornoza's *Where I Stay* (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009): "Zornoza's narrator, with a languorous but precise lyricism, traverses the Mid- and Southwestern United States, telling tales of greasy, smoky bus terminals and truck stops.... He selects details with a jeweler's precision, endowing them with symbolic meaning and using rhythmic prose that twists and turns like the many roads on which his narrator travels.... Zornoza is as much a novelist as he is a cartographer of loneliness, doubt, and fear, one that fearlessly delineates the stark realms of disappointment, unrequited love, and unfulfilled dreams."

The Review of Contemporary Fiction reviews Andrew Zornoza's Where I Stay

Review of Contemporary Fiction on Andrew Zornoza's *Where I Stay*: "Squarely situated between the ethos of Jack Kerouac and Walker Evans. Where I Stay is a novel of almost pure voice, told in diaristic fragments coupled with photographs whose captions are drawn from other moments in the time of the narrative. . . . a young man moving aimlessly through an America moving violently through him. In and out of cars, of the arms of lovers, looking for someone he lost, for a moment of rest. . . A year passes, days and weeks omitted, blank spaces where the lives of criminals, kind families, abandoned dogs and factory workers continue to be lived. . . . Those who filled his world he can now find 'only in the cracks.'"

Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay reviewed at elimae

At elimae, John Findura reviews Andrew Zornoza's *Where I Stay* (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009): "Andrew Zornoza's marvelous first book is hard to pin down. It seamlessly shifts its delivery from straight-ahead to a possibly unreliable photographer with captions that either expand on the text, or further question the reality and relationship between prose and picture.... Zornoza manages to capture that wanderlust that has caught anyone who ever read On The Road, or realized you can get on Route 80 West and drive from New York to San Francisco. It's sad and searching, filled with the desire for experience.... Andrew Zornoza does it with style and grace."

Blake Butler interviews Andrew Zornoza at Bookslut

At Bookslut, Blake Butler interviews Andrew Zornoza (*Where I Stay*): "The novel has an advantage in its lack of immediacy. A book that takes years to write... it takes a set of feelings and thoughts and silences that have profoundly evolved over time. Some people would have you believe that the novel is in trouble as an art form. The novel isn't in trouble -- making money off the novel is in trouble."

TSky Press authors: Making more than to-do lists

We're delighted to report that Andrew Zornoza's *Where I Stay* is hanging tough at #7 on SPD's Fiction Bestsellers list, and Ana Bozicevic's *Stars of the Night Commute* receives not one but five shoutouts at No Tell Motel's "Best Poetry Books of 2009" list.

NewPages reviews Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay

At NewPages, Cynthia Reeser provides a brilliant review of Andrew Zornoza's Where I Stay (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009): "Zornoza finds meaning not only in the land and in travel, but conveys what is derived via both ordinary moments and dysfunctional situations: A man is fired from a road crew; a bleary narrator wakes from a heroin dream next to a bleeding body and nods off again; male prostitutes tread carefully around a new recruit....Zornoza’s use of fragments of image and narration is expert. The movement of people and lives; chance meetings between strangers destined never to cross paths again; moments that can never be recreated; the uncertainty of people, place, relationships – all collide across culture and class, gender and race to form an anthem of displacement...."

HTML Giant reviews Andrew Zornoza’s Where I Stay

At HTML Giant, Blake Butler reviews Andrew Zornoza's *Where I Stay* (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009): "A refreshing, pitch-perfect kind of steering that is innovative not only for the genre it might get called into, but for experiential and language-focused texts of every stripe.... Where I Stay is a dual kind of amalgam.... There is violence and desperation. There is music and shithole buildings. Dirt. There is sky.... Meditative and rhythmic in the mind of Mary Robison mashed with William Vollmann, the prose in sequence forms a narrative of seeking, of looking for something familiar in so much splay.... Reaches beyond⎯the narrative in beautifully and concretely rendered fragments evicts a true sense of drift, though within the drift, the body.... Unforgettable."

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