Figures in a Mirror

Figures in a Mirror is a complex fictional tapestry depicting the women and men who worked in the San Francisco Bay Area adult film scene in the last decades of the 20th century. The novel explores their compulsions, desires and fears and includes encounters with the supernatural, archetypal forces underlying their sexuality. Jake, a film maker patching his life back together in the wake of a painful divorce, becomes entangled via x-rated film projects with a disturbed psychiatrist whose attempt to activate archetypal forces is a call for help, a search for meaning, into which Jake is willy nilly pulled. A mid-life picaresque anti-hero, Jake stumbles bewildered between adventures-sexual romps, bad business deals, chaotic x-rated film shoots, women who need rescuing, lovers’ quarrels-on a quest to make sense of it all. The novel gives us an insider’s view of the industry. Many of the films Z.D.M. Strong wrote, directed and produced in the ‘70s are now considered classics of the Golden Age of Porn. Vinegar Syndrome (vinegarsyndrome.com) is upgrading several of his films to blue ray and 4K. The Rialto Report includes a personal interview and other information on him (therialtoreport.com/2016/11/13/zachary-strong.) Strong is a part native-American who has studied southwestern native-American rituals as well as Jungian psychology. Figures in a Mirror reflects this interest in his heritage and underlying archetypal themes.