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The Nina Zero Novels of Robert Eversz
Nina Zero doesn’t exist. Then again, neither does Mary Alice Baker, her alter ego. Robert M. Eversz has revealed the bare, paradoxical essence of what it means for a disenfranchised young woman to come of age in contemporary Los Angeles in his Nina Zero series of crime novels, Shooting Elvis, Killing Paparazzi, Burning Garbo, and Digging James Dean. With his account of the hardening, and softening, of accidental criminal Nina Zero née Mary Alice, he also manages to comment on those other Americans whom one might call the hyper-enfranchised—that is, celebrities, especially the Hollywood variety, and their worshippers. Mary Alice Baker is at first a young woman whose good-girl candy coating covers a dark and violent interior. A photographer by trade, bored with a life of taking posed pictures of crying babies and playing referee to her violently dysfunctional family, she takes on a dubious delivery for her bad boyfriend Wrex. After accidentally blowing up Los Angeles International Airport, she reinvents herself underground as a punkish photographer named Nina Zero. Nina, because it sounds exotic to her, Zero, because it is “the sum total of my life to date.” With her new persona comes the awakening of her criminal instincts, a refinement of the urge for self-preservation after twentythree years on the receiving end of her father’s alcohol-fueled abuse. What is at the heart of this character is the duality of her two selves. When at bay she is cunning, physically capable and bold, yet one never really believes that she is a hardened criminal to the core, or that she would ever hurt anyone for any reason other than self-defense. The candy coating has migrated to a candy center. This character is not really Nina, nor is she really Mary Alice. Her true self lies somewhere between. As her new self develops, we see how very vulnerable Nina Zero still is. Even as a threateningly tough woman, a terrorist woman, who has stolen cars, kidnapped and shot people, she is taken advantage of again and again. This is apparent in Shooting Elvis when her new love interest, an artist in the Pop vein, who upon learning that she was the one responsible for the airport bombing, is inspired to paint a series of celebrity-criminal pieces, including one of Nina with an AK-47, which he is sure will make him famous, if he can make it known he slept with the LAX bomber. Her new best friend Cass seeks to exploit her further by writing and selling her story to a movie-of-theweek producer. For these two to achieve the fame they desire, Nina will have to be nabbed by the law. As an ex-con in Killing Paparazzi, Nina is no longer naïve, no longer afraid to use her instincts, yet is again taken advantage of by her new green card husband Gabriel. They whisk away to Las Vegas to be married hours after she is paroled for manslaughter, her only conviction from the crime spree that ends Shooting Elvis. Though this Brit pays her two grand to marry him, they hit it off and spend the weekend consummating their nuptials. He is perhaps less than honest with her and drops her as soon as they return to L.A. Of course, when he is found dead, floating in Lake Hollywood, ex-con Nina is the prime suspect. Again, she must rely on her survival skills to stay out of jail, and to stay alive, as her husband’s killer seems to be after her as well. At the beginning of the third novel in the series, Burning Garbo, having been duped time and time again, Nina is at first glance cold-hearted, but upon a closer look, sad and empty. Nina, now working as a full-time paparazzi, is implicated in arson and murder when Angela Doubleday, the reclusive, Garbo-inspired star she is staking out for a valuable tabloid photo, is thought to have died in a suspicious house fire. Once again Nina must investigate a crime to clear her name. Nina shows her soft side when, acting against her survival instincts, she adopts a lost Rottweiler with no teeth who has wandered out of the fire; she even names him Baby. At thirty, she has been widowed and estranged from her family; with Baby she fills the empty space this has left. In Digging James Dean, Nina investigates a possible cult of young actors who believe that wearing a bone of a famous person will make them famous as well. She and her now established sidekick, tabloid journalist Frank Adams, fly to Indiana to investigate rumors of a robbery of James Dean’s grave. Still craving a family connection, Nina decides to trust her long lost sister who shows up after their mother’s death, only to disappear with Nina’s savings and turn up dead. Although clearly no innocent, Nina comes off as a victim of circumstance. If she could manage to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time, she might just be able to lead a normal existence. While she could not go back to taking baby portraits, she would certainly never kidnap or kill again, unless provoked. Deep down Nina wants what we all want, to be good at something and to belong to someone. The noir appeal of these novels is richly evident, especially in its deftly written tough talk. The reader can imagine Bogart delivering a line like “L.A. is not a true-love kind of town. Like I said, the work is good.” Yet Eversz has the wit to transcend the mere entertainment value of the noir style and use it as a means for sharply pointed social commentary. The figure lurking in the shadows, being stalked by Nina Zero and her camera, is there for our thrills, but also to expose the dark side of celebrity in America. The idea is that the press, albeit a tabloid rag, is the watchdog of America’s brand of royalty. The threat of exposure, and of consequent dethronement, is the only means by which to keep the grotesquely overprivileged from committing any horrible act they wish. As Nina exposes her film with images of ugly celebrity behavior, the wise reader calls into question her own fascination with celebrity. Parallel to the two sides of Nina Zero are the two faces of Hollywood glitz, both of which have been calling to us for generations. The legend of small-town girls discovered in the corner coffee shop and transfigured into million-dollar movie stars is the very essence of the American dream—but by now it’s equally American to know better. Nothing is what it seems and the glitter never quite covers the dirt; we at once crave the shine and want to dig up the dregs. Nina Zero doesn’t exist, but then again, who really does in L.A.? Reviewed by Michelle Coash Michelle Coash is a first year MFA candidate in Fiction at Western Michigan University.
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Coast, Department of English, Western Michigan University All material copyrighted ©2000-2005 by Third Coast. |