⋙ [PDF] Zone One A Novel Colson Whitehead 9780385528078 Books

Zone One A Novel Colson Whitehead 9780385528078 Books

Download As PDF : Zone One A Novel Colson Whitehead 9780385528078 Books

Zone One A Novel Colson Whitehead 9780385528078 Books

As I learned from reading The Underground Railroad (one of my favorite books of 2016), Colson Whitehead is all about taking a genre that you think you know and turning it on its head. Zone One is a zombie novel, but it's not what we've come to expect from this sub-genre: it's a snarky satire that focuses its commentary more on modern society than innate humanity.

In Whitehead's post-apocalyptic world, survival is re-branded by teams of overseers who recognized the importance of good marketing. Those who are still alive aren't called survivors, they're called "the American Phoenix." The camps and safe zones have names like "Babbling Brooks" and "Happy Acres" that make them sound more like suburban condominiums.

Mark Spitz, the book's protagonist, is a mediocre man who thrives in this new world where he notes that "intellect and ingenuity and talent [are] as equally meaningless as stubbornness, cowardice, and stupidity." Here he has taken on the job of a "sweeper," tasked with clearing the streets of Manhattan of zombies.

Even Whitehead's zombies are interesting. There are two different categories: the skels are your typical modern zombies, making up 99% of the infected. But then there's the remaining 1%, dubbed the stragglers, who become frozen in place repeating a mundane task until they're put out of their misery.

There are so many cool ideas here, but unfortunately cool ideas don't make for a compelling story. As much as I appreciated the cleverness of Whitehead's post-apocalyptic world, I felt bored for the majority of this book. Not a lot happens. The tension is minimal. The prose is verbose.

Zone One would have made an excellent short story. Whitehead is great writer with an enviable imagination. But that wasn't enough to carry this full-length novel.


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Zone One A Novel Colson Whitehead 9780385528078 Books Reviews

This is a simple story told with thoughtful language and style. Contemplative without melodrama, but still enough creepy action to satisfy your expectations of a good zombie tale. More literary than pulp, well-crafted, and short; if you're looking for a quick, fun read that won't make you roll your eyes in mortification, I recommend giving this a try.
To be fair to readers, I need to say at the outset that although this novel technically fits in the Zombie Apocalypse genre, it really is something much more than that. Readers looking for an old-fashioned, gut-munching zombie adventure tale (and I enjoy those, too) will likely be disappointed, so please be advised. I try not to mislead anyone in my reviews, so I wanted to be clear on this. However, if you enjoy horror fiction that aspires to social commentary, political satire, and cultural critique, then this is a move you definitely don't want to miss. Think George Romero zombie films on politically radical steroids.

The novel begins where so many zombie novels end… after the zombie pandemic has largely run its course, and surviving humans are now on the offensive, trying to simultaneously eradicate the remaining zombies and rebuild society. The protagonist, know only by the nickname Mark Spitz due to an anecdote I won't spoil here, is very much a self-proclaimed master of mediocrity. Before the zombie plague, he excelled at simply getting by in life… always square in the middle, always doing the bare minimum. But in new the post-plague world order, he finds that the qualities of merely getting by are the best one can have in this not-so-brave new world. Employed as a "sweeper"-- a somewhat-militarized combatant tasked with sweeping lower Manhattan of the remaining zombies with well-placed head shots--Mark serves as the novel's chronicler of the outbreak and the attempt to rebuild America (now called the American Phoenix) from the ashes of a near apocalypse.

But Whitehead has larger targets than the zombies, as he deftly critiques the structural inequalities, rampant conspicuous consumption,crises of identity, and corporate hegemony of the 21st century U.S. In many ways, this novel is more similar to political horror novels like 1984, Brave New World, Beloved, and even Heart of Darkness than it is to mainstream zombie fiction. His writing is elegant, poetic… line after line of prose that leaps from the page with thick descriptions of the politics of everyday life. It's not an easy read, as the narrative twists and turns, looping back on itself through flashbacks and oral histories of Last Night (as the onset of the plague is described). If you are a fan of highly literate horror fiction… or just highly literate writing in general… then this is a novel not to be missed.
This is an interesting but complicated read. The author is obviously talented and very intelligent, which is both good and bad. The good is that the story is challenging and engaging. It is written with enough detail that one becomes interested and invested in the main character, dubbed "Mark Spitz" by fellow survivors, and his current place in this universe as well as his harrowing back story. But the bad is that the author uses such a wide vocabulary that I found myself having to look up word meaning often as I read. Thank goodness has a ready dictionary at hand. My other issue was that the story jumped from "Mark's" present to memories and back with little warning. I got lost at times, especially if I had to interrupt my reading for something and then come back to it. It was a bit disorienting. For this reason it lost one star in the rating. The book is also basically one very long (as in the majority of the book) chapter and one chapter less in length. By the end the reader does get a full sense of just who this man is, his motivations, his cynicism at this point, and also the very, very bleak outlook most of the characters around him have. I recommend this book for those who like a challenging read and a break from the usual mindless drivel of most horror fiction. And this is really so much more than just horror fiction. Rather than insisting the reader come down to the level of the story, Mr. Whitehead insists the reader come up to the level of the fiction, which is a nice change of pace.
As I learned from reading The Underground Railroad (one of my favorite books of 2016), Colson Whitehead is all about taking a genre that you think you know and turning it on its head. Zone One is a zombie novel, but it's not what we've come to expect from this sub-genre it's a snarky satire that focuses its commentary more on modern society than innate humanity.

In Whitehead's post-apocalyptic world, survival is re-branded by teams of overseers who recognized the importance of good marketing. Those who are still alive aren't called survivors, they're called "the American Phoenix." The camps and safe zones have names like "Babbling Brooks" and "Happy Acres" that make them sound more like suburban condominiums.

Mark Spitz, the book's protagonist, is a mediocre man who thrives in this new world where he notes that "intellect and ingenuity and talent [are] as equally meaningless as stubbornness, cowardice, and stupidity." Here he has taken on the job of a "sweeper," tasked with clearing the streets of Manhattan of zombies.

Even Whitehead's zombies are interesting. There are two different categories the skels are your typical modern zombies, making up 99% of the infected. But then there's the remaining 1%, dubbed the stragglers, who become frozen in place repeating a mundane task until they're put out of their misery.

There are so many cool ideas here, but unfortunately cool ideas don't make for a compelling story. As much as I appreciated the cleverness of Whitehead's post-apocalyptic world, I felt bored for the majority of this book. Not a lot happens. The tension is minimal. The prose is verbose.

Zone One would have made an excellent short story. Whitehead is great writer with an enviable imagination. But that wasn't enough to carry this full-length novel.