Within the first two pages of Evan Dara’s The Easy Chain, the reader is confronted by a pair of small errors which, in a subtle way, speak to the overall achievement of issuing a novel of this caliber outside of the ever-shifting boundaries of the traditional publishing ecosystem. Because, while there are surely scores of scribes out there with dreams of their bound visions sailing up the straits of various Best Seller lists, their commercially viable genius made manifest by the sales, marketing, and distribution arms of that imprint on the spine, it’s fair to fathom that others pine for an editor who will keep a steady hand on the wheel, listening, validating, and sharpening at each station of the criss-crossed path to print. How many MFA grads are out there tonight, awaiting the arrival of their Max Perkins, their Michael Pietsch, their Gordon Lish? Someone they can lean on, who isn’t afraid to rap their knuckles each time their manuscript goes astray, then sweetening each slap with a kiss.
Of course, these sainted prose whisperers are totems for a multi-layered operation, composed of developmental editors, copy editors, and proofreaders each taking their blades to the manuscript as it makes its way, slowly, to someone’s shelf. Those who go the self-publishing route realize the value of these roles, since, no matter how meticulous you are, you inevitably go snowblind within your wasteland of words, your brain unable to deftly switch from forest to trees and back again without dropping a comma or misnaming a cultural touchstone from time to time, mishaps that are only spotted when the book is hot off the press.
In the second sentence of The Easy Chain, it reads “Farewell is paradise is comparison.” Even now, typing that line in a word-processing program which people pay for, the error isn’t flagged. It flies beneath the grammatical radar, and eludes the casual reader, who may see the word they expect to find.
On page 2, we are invited to an orchestrated setpiece, where we begin to hear the stories surrounding this “superluminous” savant named Lincoln, who is at the center of a happening in Chicago amongst its twentysomething social elite. It’s a reception held by Hildy Waterson who asked that everyone dress up in a costume that alludes to the year of their birth. While others come in like Barry Lyndon, Squeaky Fromme, and Pol Pot, Lincoln commands the center of the dance floor wearing a disco ball on his head:
“Just a whole sparkly sphere brought down from ‘70s heaven and lodged atop his shoulders. And there it, or he, was, a glitterspray in night sky, descended among us.”
It’s a vivid and compelling image, this character who effortlessly glides and magnetically draws attention, wearing an enclosed mask of mirrors that hypnotically dazzles each onlooker with a reflection of their best selves, while withholding the man in the middle. We’ll learn more about Lincoln’s magic as we proceed, but in the next sentence, we are tripped by this:
“Granted, this was a rare surrender of Lincoln’s native subtlety, got up like The Replacements’ geodesic sibling…”
As you sort through the stacks at your local record store, there’s a chance you’ll see The Replacements sitting right in front of The Residents. But, aside from alphabetic proximity, there’s a yawning chasm between the ramshackle drunken mayhem generated by Paul Westerberg and the Stinson brothers, and the anonymous and prolific art collective functioning as The Residents.
Those who have been thinking about taking on Evan Dara and The Easy Chain should not see these two examples as persnickety words of warning, or an attempt to downplay the book’s brilliance in any way. Instead, these minor miscues serve as a testament to its pseudonymous author, who bravely bucked a flawed system to present a complicated and uncompromised vision of this year leading up to 9/11 (or, in this case, 9/10), without the kind of editorial support system that sustains the literary industrial complex.
The Evan Dara Affinity 
Now that- thanks to you- I’m reading EC knowing that it takes place in that tight time-period leading up to 9/10/01….I’m taking notes of all the time clues. Even upon my first reading, I was struck by the power of the disco-ball-on-face image.
We are told that this party took place in the “summer and splendor”… This is interesting because we will find out (from Borah) that L’s Aunt Virginia dies on May 28th, 11 days before Lincoln contacts Borah for his services. We also know that L’s life seems to start getting a little wobbly in the late Spring. But more on that later.
Lincoln was certainly at the height of his influence when he chose to wear the mask. I’m interested if this event took place after Borah had given Lincoln the devastating details of his aunt Virginia’s final years. Dara makes it impossible not to see her death within a social/political context.
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Aside from the seasonal indicator, there is almost nothing that places this event chronologically. However, at the bottom of page 1, we see “some girl with sprigs straggled in her extension,” which _might_ be a reference to May Day (or Beltane, for the Scots and Irish). It’s a lucky charm amidst the swinging saturnalia, with Lincoln perhaps serving as the Maypole for these fertility festivities. But this, of course, is a stretch.
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