Pariah

Pariah

By Bob Fingerman

What is it about the zombie genre that makes it such a tenacious sub-genre in our popular culture? Certainly it is not the nuanced characterization of the walking undead. From the opening scene of George Romero's 1968 genre-setting film Night of the Living Dead  to present, zombies, with very few exceptions, have been rather two-dimensional in scope. They are reanimated corpses who have a singular existential urge: to devour human flesh. Not the most rounded characters. And yet they seem to have more staying than vampires, wizards and werewolves which lend themselves to complex characterization.

So what gives?

The difference is the secondary characters. While other similar styles of horror focus the narrative on the specific creature (be it vampires, werewolves or what have you), what many people fail to understand about (most of) the zombie genre is that the zombies are actually inconsequential to the story being told. Zombie lore, at it's finest, is social satire. The writer or director uses the notion of a zombie apocalypse as a way in which to render society down to a microcosm of our complex social networks. Zombies focus the multitude of humanity's ills and places them under a microscope for the writer or director to examine in detail.

The zombie element is simply a clever and visually exciting backdrop to the real story: the human drama unfolding in the farm house or the shaping mall or the tenement building. When zombie lore strays from this nowhere-to-run motif it often falls flat on its face (note: this does not include anything that is written or filmed from the perspective of the zombie... that's genre deconstruction and worthy of its own discussion. See Dust). George Romero himself is guilty of straying in some of his more recent work, especially Day of the Dead.

All this is not to say that those working within the zombie genre are entirely reined in with respect to how they tell their story. There is still more than enough creative leeway within the genre to sustain it for years to come.

Case in point, Bob Fingerman's novel Pariah. The novel begins months into the apocalypse. The streets of New York are wall to wall zombies. A group of people living in a building in (or near) the Bronx have barricaded themselves inside their own building and are slowly starving to death and/or going crazy. As with so much zombie lore, each character represents a specific social stereotype that the author wants to throw into his own personal meting pot. What would happen if we put a misogynistic jock, an elderly Jewish couple, an artist, a woman who has recently lost her husband and infant daughter, the son of a mid-western Jesus freak and a middle aged black dude all together in a tiny space? What if they couldn't leave? How would that pan out?

This story could just as easily take place on a lonely spacecraft in deep space or a collapsed mine or an Antarctic base during the winter. Really, it would work in any local that offered no immediate escape. It would just be difficult to explain how an elderly Jewish couple ended up in Antarctica. That's where the zombies come in handy. It doesn't hurt that they are creepy and gory and scary as well.

This is what Fingerman understands so well. Rather than try to re-invent the wheel, Fingerman stayed true to the spirit of that old farmhouse in Romero's original film. Pariah is very much about humans trying and failing to co-exist in times of extreme duress.

But if that was all there was to Pariah, why would it merit such a lofty discussion on the nature of zombie lore? Thankfully, Pariah brings more to the table than simply another retelling of the same rat-in-a-cage trope. Fingerman, in what can only be described as a moment of undead clarity, introduces the concept of zombie immunity. What if specific individuals, for whatever reason, repelled the walking undead? What if certain people were simply unappetizing to zombies and could walk among them entirely unmolested? How would that work?

Pariah isn't a perfect novel. I found that Fingerman threw far too many pop culture references into his dialogue and internal monologue. While I fully understand the pervasive nature of books, music, films and the like, I don't think that people living under these conditions would reference SCTV or Dumb and Dumber that often. A lot of the pop culture references felt shoehorned into the narrative as a way for Fingerman to sound off about his own views rather than develop his characters. Unless, of course, he was insinuating that the sum of our culture doesn't amount to anything more than what we know about The Addams Family. In that case, this book is even more depressing than I initially thought.

But that's a minor inconvenience to an otherwise thought-provoking addition to the zombie oeuvre. I'm not one for spoilers so I'm just going to urge those who enjoy all things zombie to read Pariah. I'll admit that if you aren't a fan of the genre I don't think this will be the novel to turn you on to zombies, but if you, like me, crave all things living dead, this is a can't miss novel. It maintains all of the standard features that drew you into the zombie sub-genre to begin with, stays true to the mythology established by George Romero and throws just enough monkey wrench into the cogs to leave you asking more questions that it answers. Pariah is certainly a next step sort of work and, in time, should be considered canon for the keepers of zombie lore.

Gathering Darkness

Gathering Darkness

By Chris Allinotte

(Full disclosure: I was given a copy of this book by the author who also happens to be an old university buddy).

It seems to me that Chris Allinotte is writing in the wrong era.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that Mr. Allinotte will be unsuccessful in our own age, but his stories, collected in anthology form, are reminiscent of the sort that populated the golden age of science fiction and horror magazines. One can picture a wide eyed little boy reading these tales under the covers of his bed with a flashlight circa 1948. In fact most, if not all of Allinotte's stories would look right at home in magazines such as Amazing Stories! or Weird Tales. While I'm certain that comparable magazine exist today in the form of e-zines (I'm positive in fact, since a lot of Allinotte's work has been published in such places)

In fact, it's not too difficult to trace the inspiration for Allinotte's anthology of 28 spooky, gory and, often hilarious tales back to the sort of campfire stories we used to tell each other around the campfire when we were kids. Many of the tales in this book reminded me so much of those found a little book I have loved and lost more time than I can count: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. So much so, that I kept turning the page, hoping to see one of Stephen Gammell's highly disturbing illustrations (I didn't, but it would have been cool).

From there I can only guess that, like me, Allinotte grew up on a solid diet of campy 70s and 80s horror and slasher films. Anything from Sleepaway Camp, Evil Dead II and Return of the Living Dead (or any other combination of low-budget horror goodness). While my tastes tended to gravitate toward the work of George Romero and Lucio Fulci, Allinotte seems to have taken a wider approach to horror. Inspiration ranging from Stephen King to Sam Raimi is evidenced in his work which has made for a more eclectic and diversified collection. Within this collection there are aliens, monsters, giant insects, ghosts, zombies, Satan, and any number of other demonic concoctions. It's a veritable cornucopia of horror traditions.

As with any collection of short horror stories (and like the horror magazines of the 1950s and 60s), Gathering Darkness is hit and miss. Given the length of some the stories, it doesn't much matter because if a mutant killer built by the military isn't your thing, the next story isn't far away. Some of the highlights for me included "Postage Due, Pandora", a story about a mysterious box that houses all sorts of madness and "The Cabin Sleeps", a traditional-style urban legend that would be perfect for a recitation around a campfire.

What I liked most about this collection is Allinotte's playful style. What a lot of horror writers of the Creepshow variety tend to forget is that horror in this style doesn't work well without comedy. Gathering Darkness exudes a playful cheekiness that dares the readers to simultaneously gasp in disgust and squeal in delight. The sort of of campiness that has been lost on the current generation of horror writers (though, admittedly, I don't read as much horror as I used to, so I might be entirely wrong with that assumption).

Throughout the collection the characters and setting remain of the two-dimensional variety that all horror junkies understand. There's no sense in broad characterization and setting. It's a waste of time. Why bother when it's a good bet that character will be eaten by a puss oozing blob of goo in three pages. Keep to the essentials and keep the pace lively. The readers can for the blood and Allinotte delivers quickly and efficiently.

I also liked the short interludes between stories. The collection has several centerpiece stories peppered with short shots that are often tongue-in-cheek shots at the horror genre as a whole. I thought these brief interludes added to the collection by breaking it up and jolting the reader away from traditional pacing.

While I enjoyed the collection as a whole I did have a few reservations. Some of the stories do fall off the rails a bit. One in particular, "Devil's Night", tries to throw every possible horror convention at the reader in the span of a few dozen pages and left me a little perplexed as to what had happened. But that, I suppose, is the plight of the horror writer. Throw your ideas at the wall and see what sticks.

Another thing that I felt was missing (and perhaps this is my own problem rather than the author's) was the absence of that one scare that keeps me awake at night. One story, "Kittens for Sale" came very close (and I will probably carry that particular story around for a while) and "Tempting Morsels" did remind me of the very real scare I suffered the first time I read Stephen King's short story "The Jaunt." But the scare never did occur, but I was ever hopeful throughout my reading.

Overall, however, Gathering Darkness is a strong collection of short horror and worthy of a look. If you are a fan of horror fiction, especially of the camp variety, keep an eye out for Chris Allinotte. His brand of horror may be reminiscent of a bygone era of magazines but horror is timeless and we all need a good, rollicking scare from time to time. I'm looking forward to reading his next work.

Dog Blood

Dog Blood

By David Moody

True to my new year's resolution, I have finally read the second book in one of the series I have started over the past three years. Believe me, I'm feeling pretty emboldened right about now. So much so that I also installed a towel rack in the bathroom and walked the dogs. I'm getting shit done today! Don't even try and slow me down!

...

So, anyway, yeah....

Dog Blood is the second book in the Hater series by David Moody. I read the first book, Hater, last year and enjoyed the hell out of it. I think Moody's approach to the widening modern zombie canon is both refreshing and innovative in that he broadens the scope enough to see out the entire arc of the zombie apocalypse by making his zombies rational, thinking killers rather than the classic brain-eating drone. The result is a novel that is so relentless, so uncompromising that I actually finished it in one sitting... a rare feat. For a longer and more in depth take on the first book in Moody's neo-zombie trilogy go check out my blog post on Hater.

Dog Blood wasn't quit so relentless. It couldn't possibly be. Whereas Hater chronicles the first days of the war between the Haters and the Unchanged, Dog Blood takes us into the endless war of attrition that has settled over the planet. That sense of panic that Moody portrayed so well in the first book is replaced by an all-pervasive fear. A remorseless fear of what may (or may not) be coming. The first half of the novel is a bit slow (plodding at times). Characters drift in and out of the narrative as they interact with Danny, the main character (and Hater) who, by nature, has very little affinity for anyone or anything aside from killing and finding his five-year old daughter. But the slower bits at the front end lull the reader into the false sense of security that everything is going to even out. Right before Moody blows everything out of the water once again.

Once things pick up about two thirds of the way through the novel, Dog Blood is every bit and graphic and gory as Hater, often more so. Moody has a wonderfully sick and twisted mind, especially when it comes to his portrayal of children. There are some scenes in this novel that will spawn nightmares for me over the next few weeks and most of them will involved kids. Yikes!

I would have liked to see some more inventing murder scenes. I mean, if you are committed to writing such a graphic novel, It would be cool to see Moody get imaginative the ways Danny and Ellie kill people. Alas, it's a small complaint. with or without novel kill scenes, the smell of rotten viscera practically emanates from the last pages of the book. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

The reason for the onset of the Hate, as it is called, is still not explained, but that's okay. Given that the entire book is a chronicle of the utter chaos unleashed on humanity one doesn't expect to get clinical answers as to why. The characters don't know (and at this point will never know) and so the readers are left i the dark as well. As it should be with zombie stories. In a true catastrophe nobody would have time to find the answers. Nobody would even bother asking. It's simple all action, all the time.

While I usually demand interesting characters, with zombie literature I don't, mainly because character studies and zombies don't mix. Zombies don't have character and they spend their time killing the people that do, so best not get attached to any particular character. In Dog Blood the characters are as two-dimensional as they need to be given that the world is a place where life means less than a truck full of dead rats. Who's got time for character study when you know they'll be dead in a paragraph or two anyway.

In fact, life is so cheap in Moody's world that the entire trilogy thus far feels like a prequel to Cormac McCarthy's The Road. McCarthy never explains how the world in his novel because such a bleak, unforgiving landscape of torment and death, but one doesn't have to look further than Moody for a possibility (I know, I know... there's no way that The Road involved zombies in any sort of incarnation, and comparing the two books feels kind of funny, but the mood definitely exists). There is a real feeling of impending desolation and hopelessness in the series and I can't imagine Moody is setting us up for a happy ending and I'd be disappointed if he somehow provided one. One can almost see the end of the trilogy: Danny desperately walking along the road toward the ocean with his little girl. The parallels are creepy.

While not quite as good as the Hater, Dog Blood is the necessary sequel and does exactly what is needed to bridge the gap between the the onset of the neo-zombie apocalypse and its conclusion. Some questions have been answered but not nearly enough to satisfy the reader and there's enough gore pack in there to make George Romero uneasy and Moody finishes Dog Blood in absolutely spectacular fashion (one wonders if he takes lessons from Steig Larsson). Like the weight of the pulsing zombie horde, it will be virtually impossible to hold off reading the third book for very long.

Since I'm already motivated, I'm gonna go board up the windows, and start the final novel. This dude needs some closure.

Dust

Dust

By Joan Frances Turner

(Warning: Nerdiness ahead...)

The modern-day zombie mythology has evolved from George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Since then, countless writers, directors and producers have expanded on Romero's original idea, exploding the mythology in all sorts of direction from the purely canonical work of Max Brooks (World War Z), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) and Romero himself to the deconstructionist, first... um... zombie accounts by Marc Price (Colin) and Andrew Parkman (I, Zombie) to the non-traditional accounts that break significantly from Romero's original mythos that include the work of Francis Laurence (I Am Legend) and David Moody (Hater). For a genre that has often been derided for its limitations, creators and proponents of the zombie-verse have reinvented themselves in all sorts of new and interesting ways.

Then along comes Joan Frances Turner, a graduate of Harvard Law School and obviously a zombie aficionado. In her first novel, Dust, Turner has taken a large bite out of the zombie genre, chewed it up and spit it out. Dust is a highly disturbing and powerful novel set in the heartland of the zombie-verse (the American Midwest) and follows the wanderings of Jessie, a former 14 year-old vegetarian who, upon perishing in a family car accident, has dug herself up from the grave and roams the Indiana countryside with her gang of the walking undead.

Dust is not for the faint of heart. At once compassionate and brutally honest, it is also gory beyond compare. Turner pulls no punches in her description of the brutal, painful life (unlife?) of a zombie. The undead deal with memories of their past life, wrestle with the all-consuming hunger that dogs them incessantly all while trying to survive in a world where continued existence is at once never-ending and seemingly without purpose.

She supposes the existence of an entire zombie culture complete with a method of telepathic communication, social hierarchies and various groups of competing zombies including those who consume human flesh and those that don't. Although even George Romero has hinted at a more profound version of the zombie in Day of the Dead, it is Turner that has added a complexity to the otherwise one-dimensional shuffling ghouls we have come to expect since the days of Johnny and Barbara (and Turner does a wonderful job of sneaking cheeky references to zombie films into the narrative. Don't think I didn't enjoy that!).

If that was Turner's only aim in writing Dust, it would have been more than enough to have added significant meat to the genre's aching bones. But Turner takes things a whole lot further. What starts out as a from-the-zombie's-perspective style deconstruction of the personal and social wonderfully devolves into uncharted waters as a third player is introduced. No longer is the world divided among the living and the dead. In a terrifying twist, the genre is split wide open. Here's why...

While most of those responsible for creating and perpetuating the zombie genre have concentrated on the early days of the apocalypse (Dawn of the Dead) or perhaps take up the story in the midst of the hordes (The Walking Dead, Diary of the Dead) very few, if any, writers tackle the endgame... the end of the zombies. Perhaps it is because zombies themselves have always signified an end of sorts or perhaps it is because humans would most likely not be around to witness the end of zombies. Either way, the end of the zombie invasion has never truly been discussed before Turner. By creating a third mutation, Turner has opened up the concept of total consumption and Dust becomes not only a superior novel but also a philosophical tract on the topics of death, starvation and annihilation. A veritable necrological compendium of misery.

I have been waiting a long time for someone to treat the zombie genre with the literary care that Turner exhibits here. While I take nothing away from the work of Max Brooks and David Moody, both of whom I enjoy, it is Joan Frances Turner that has raised the bar on why a zombie book can be and elevated the genre from mere sideshow anomaly to a seriousness it has always deserved.