Soon after the publication of Zanesville, reports began circulating around Hollywood that the actor Kevin Costner was furious about being featured as the "voice" of Dooley Duck, one of several animated hologram characters in the story, who serve as advertising vehicles in the fictional world of the novel.[4] Under the magical influence of the protagonist, Elijah Clearfather, Dooley not only comes to life and breaks free of his commercial masters (a monolithic children's day care empire) he develops a penis and becomes an advocate for sexual enjoyment and the leader of a social and political reform called The Surprise Party.

A second rumor that began making the rounds that Zanesville had actually been written by the late David Foster Wallace under a pseudonym, while another related and more detailed story had it that Kris Saknussemm is not an individual author at all, but rather a name taken by a collective of writers who wrote the book as a collaborative experiment, in something of the same spirit as the Nicholas Bourbaki phenomenon amongst mathematicians.

This latter view gained some extended support as Saknussemm had written about the "Bourbaki Conspiracy," and an earlier published story was based on the premise that the reclusive Thomas Pynchon was just a composite entity...an on-going project and artistic prank which such writers as Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut and J.D. Salinger had participated in.

Appearing at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle in 2006, Saknussemm fielded questions about the rumor, remarking, "As Zanesville has much to do with the idea of the Conspiracy Theory as the folk religion of our time, I'm somewhat amused. But I've heard something similar about Poppy Z. Brite. I think we all just like hoaxes and rumors. They reassure us that we can actually participate in the manufacture of reality. But as one of my characters says, 'I'm real enough.'" A series of readings in New York and appearances on public radio and at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers helped to dispel the rumor.

• "Make a mistake with the sacred and you get scared."

• "Because you can’t fool all the people all the time, you need to be very clear on which people you are trying to fool at any given time."

• "Sex is a special kind of violence."

• "There is nothing so quaint as a future beyond your wildest imagination."

• "God is a question."

• "The best place to hide an elephant is in a herd of elephants."

• "Camouflage is the most interesting of all the arts."

• "I favor the eternal conflicts: the individual vs. society...cowboys vs. dinosaurs."

The Author & The Novels

• Saknussemm.com - Deviance with a difference (The Zanesville Website)
• Saknussemm On MySpace
• Gag Rule - The Saknussemm Blog
• Saknussemm On Facebook
• The Private Midnight Website
• Private Midnight On MySpace

Articles, Interviews & Reviews

• Saknussemm Responds to Film Studio's Pressure
• Zanesville Author Kris Saknussemm's Terrorist Conspiracy
• Zanesville's Dong Rings Plenty of Bells
• Michael Jackson Robot Draws Lawsuit Threat
• ShatterColors Literary Review Interview
• Largehearted Boy Book Notes for Zanesville
• About.com Interview
• Drinks With Tony Interview
• Zanesville, Journey to the Center of the Mirth
• Five Tips to Avoiding Total Disaster as a Novelist
• Retort Magazine Interview
• Mostly Fiction Review
• SF Signal Review
• BlogCritics Magazine Review
• SF Site Review
• SciFi Dimensions Review
• Internet Review of Science Fiction Review