'Interstitial Spaces and Multiple Histories in William Gibson's Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties

In William Gibson’s post-cyberpunk Interstitial trilogy – Virtual Light(1993), Idoru (1996) and All Tomorrow’s Parties (1999) – hemaps anoppressive, urban and globalisedAmerican monoculture.However, themostprovocative spaces in these novels are those liminal spaces ‘in between’ therigid corporate, military and governmental structures. Utilising atheoretical framework derived from Fredric Jameson, David Harvey andVivian Sobchack, among others, this paper argues that Gibson’s novelsboth reflect the increasing domination of categories of space over categoriesof time as well as examining and to a certain extent championing theinterstitial spaces—those new spaces of resistance populated by those peoplethat cannot orwill not easily fit into the bland urbanised world surroundingthem. The two interstices focused on are the bridge – an amorphic collectionof society’smost unwanted in a near-future San Francisco – and theWalledCity, an eclectic digital recreation of Hong Kong’s demolished KowloonCity. Modes of resistance as well as new and changing approaches topersonal and collective histories in these spaces are also examined.