Hello all,
This post is a little bit different than what I usually post. It’s more an announcement of something THE VOID has been working on for the last year.
THE VOID has published its first book, Alex Lange’s Cretins at Dawn. Longtime readers of THE VOID will recognize this, as they read Part One of this book in serialized form in issues 02–05. But as I promised readers then, what we published there was quite literally only the beginning.
This whole endeavor started in early 2025, when Alex sent me a manuscript he’d spent the last five years or so working on. Cretins starts off with Alex working ethnographically, cataloguing the culture of the (in)famous San Onofre surfers in southern Orange County.
However, anyone who’s ever read ethnographic research will know that, by design, the writing is often distant and disinteresting. The ethnographer, attempting to remain as neutral and objective an observer as possible, writes without flair. As Alex himself puts it in his introduction, “much of anthropology’s written products are tuned toward professional readers. … they tend to lack a style that is engaging for the unschooled reader. … Just as a flare is useful for attracting rescue on the open ocean, so too can a few sharp words be used to capture the public’s attention.”
Cretins at Dawn is Alex’s own answer to this problem.
This book is an attempt to rescue anthropology from itself. First and foremost, Alex believes in the power of anthropology outside of the ivory tower. He writes, “as the world shrinks around us, average people are ever more likely to encounter individuals and communities from cultures other than their own. Unfortunately these interactions are often marked by resistance, tension, and ethnocentric misunderstandings. It is my feeling that even a cursory exposure to anthropology’s key tenets could proactively head off some of these clashes.”
And so the reader will encounter a culture they almost certainly know nothing about in the surfers of San Onofre—and it’s a truly fascinating one—but they will never forget that Alex is there. Remarkably, he achieves the goal of ethnography: the reader truly puts down this book and understands more about San Onofre surfing culture. But unlike traditional ethnographics, the reader learns much about Alex too.
Alex is not a neutral observer of SanO surf culture. He’s a young guy trying to figure out what the hell this whole life means and what you’re supposed to do with it. He’s recently married. He has kids. He starts a Master’s program in Anthropology only to realize he hates academia. He gets different jobs. He travels, with and without his family by his side. He asks questions. He observes the culture from a particular, specific perspective.
But the lasting impact from Cretins at Dawn, for me, is not the culture of San Onofre. It’s the insights into Alex’s own search for meaning and community during and after his time with the SanO surfers.
Merging the gonzo style of Hunter S. Thompson and the academic rigor of anthropological ethnography might not make sense to the uninitiated. But by the end, you’ll wonder why its never been done before.
Here’s my blurb on the back of the book:
Cretins at Dawn beautifully captures the idea that it is impossible to observe the behavior of others without also observing the behavior of ourselves. It questions the reality and value of real community, and unabashedly lays bare the author’s own long and winding journey towards realizing a community of his own.
My praise of the pinching prose and unrelenting wit must defer only to the moments of incredible emotion found within its pages. Mr. Lange certainly succeeds in his goal of gonzo-ethnography. He demonstrates that even in the most subjective and unique of moments there is something universal to the human experience.
I hope you will discover these truths for yourself and pick up a copy of Cretins at Dawn. We are printing in limited quantities, so if you want a copy, order soon!
Thank you for your support of The Void and our first book publication.
—
Anthony Draper
Editor-in-Chief
THE VOID