About the Project
Gideon Long is dying. He bankrupted the family business and was terrified his father would find him out. One risky scheme to put everything right, restore his fortunes and win over the woman who owns his heart. Where did such efforts get him? Shot through the belly and wandering a savage desert populated by Indians and strange dogs and mocking visions. Dying from the heat. From loss of blood. Dying for a last drink of water.
Gideon is willing to strike any bargain to survive. Even if he does not understand the terms.
LIMINAL STATES is a novel by Zack Parsons. It describes the intertwined, century-spanning stories of Warren Groves, Annabelle Moraud and Gideon Long, the way their relationships influence their nation and the dangers these influences pose to the larger world. The novel is divided into three separate books of three eras, the style of each informed by the setting.
The Builder takes place in 1874 and is a tragedy of love and revenge set in the sublime West, where men and women struggle to carve civilization and justice out of the badlands.
The Judge advances the narrative to 1951 and follows a hardboiled Hollywood detective with a serious world war hangover and a seemingly impossible murder to solve. He also has a side job that might prove his undoing.
The Mother is set in 2006. It is a gruesome, partially-epistolary narrative of a woman's efforts to maintain her moral identity and connection to humanity amid existential horror on a global scale.
From its conception, LIMINAL STATES was more than a novel. In addition to the book by Zack, artist and long-time collaborator Josh Hass has produced original illustrations related to the themes and events of the novel, video director Dan Sollis is working on a series of original videos based on the novel and Josh's artwork, and ominous ambient music of Conelrad explored the themes and locations of the story in several rough backing tracks.
The fruits of this collaboration will appear here. In fact, other than the full novel, all of the material related to the project will eventually be collected at liminalstates.com.
The novel is also part of an Alternate Reality Narrative, a non-linear story told through websites and audio recordings and even direct communications, culminating in a serial narrative that will serve as prologue to the events of the novel. Although you do not need to participate in any of these facets of the project to enjoy the novel, they will broaden your view of events and enhance your connection to LIMINAL STATES.
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