I’m not really into horror or zombies. Blood, guts, jump scares, and excessive suspense just aren’t my thing.
Colson Whitehead’s book Zone One is one of the exceptions to this rule… though part of why I like it is because Whitehead limits the blood, guts, and jump scares and delivers just the right amount of suspense. It’s more literary fiction than a horror story about zombies, but the sense of menace is there.
You may have heard of the author, since he just won a Pulitzer this year for his novel The Underground Railroad. It’s not his first award. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship (a.k.a., “the Genius Grant”), and he’s also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN award, and the National Book Award (also for The Underground Railroad), among other prizes.
When I first read Zone One, The Underground Railroad had not yet exploded onto the scene, and I was woefully ignorant of Whitehead and his work. I picked it up because it was on a list of science fiction and fantasy by women and people of color, nestled alongside names like Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin. Because it was recommended, I decided to read it, although I felt a bit wary of the topic. By the end of the book, I wanted more.
The story takes place during reconstruction efforts after the worst part of a zombie apocalypse, although Whitehead never uses the term “zombie.” Instead, he writes of a plague — transmitted by bite from “skels” — shambling undead creatures who seek out human flesh. Most humans affected by the plague become skels, but a handful become “stragglers,” harmless individuals frozen in time as they stare into copy machines or sit in their places of work, seemingly waiting for the next client. “Mark Spitz” (we never learn his real name) is part of a team that is cleaning up stragglers in “Zone One,” a walled off section of Manhattan that has been cleared of most skels by the Marines and is now being prepared to once more hold human inhabitants. Although the core of the story takes place over three days, Whitehead includes plenty of flashbacks, allowing the reader to gradually piece together the story of the apocalypse and how Mark Spitz has survived to date.
Whitehead balances the mood of the book perfectly from start to finish. He introduces us to the horror of the skels early on, letting us know that, although Zone One is largely free of the creatures, there are still a few the Marines did not get — and outside the wall there are plenty more, constantly being shot down by patrolling soldiers. This horror is mixed with the optimism that people feel as the United States begins to rebuild itself bit by bit and re-establish some contact with other parts of the world, with sadness over the losses that have occurred in the lives of the survivors, and with a good dose of humor to keep the book from getting too dark.
Many writers can tell a good story, but Whitehead is one of those who goes beyond that. He’s a master of the written word. It’s hard for me to pick one passage from the book to introduce you to his style, but this part of his description of Mark Spitz can give you an idea:
He staked out the B or the B chose him: it was his native land, and in high school and college he did not stray over the county line. At any rate his lot was irrevocable. He was not made team captain, nor was he the last one picked. He side-stepped detention and honor rolls with equal aplomb. Mark Spitz’s high school had abolished the yearbook practice of nominating students the Most Likely to Do This or That, in the spirit of universal self-esteem following a host of acrimonious parent summits, but his most appropriate designation would have been Most Likely Not to Be Named Most Likely Anything, and this was not a category. His aptitude lay in the well-executed middle, never shining, never flunking, but gathering himself for what it took to progress past life’s next random obstacle. It was his solemn expertise.
Also, not surprising for a recipient of a genius grant, Whitehead is smart enough to tell a story that is realistic. He spots the clichés that make no sense and corrects them.
In the cinema of end-times, the roads feeding the evacuated city are often clear, and the routes out of town clotted with paralyzed vehicles. … It makes for a stark visual image, the crazy hero returning to the doomed metropolis to save his kid or gal or to hunt down the encrypted computer file that might — just might — reverse disaster, driving a hundred miles an hour into the hexed zip codes when all the other citizens are vamoosing, wide-eyed in terror, mouths decorated with flecks of white foam.
In Mark Spitz’s particular apocalypse, the human beings were messy and did not obey rules, and every lane in and out, every artery and vein, was filled with outbound traffic.
I said that when I finished this book, I wanted more. Unfortunately, this seems to have been Whitehead’s only foray into this particular territory. No matter. He has other books that sound intriguing — not just The Underground Railroad but four other novels and two nonfiction books. I have a feeling that any of them could be worth your while, but my recommendation today is that — even if you don’t like horror — you pick up a copy of Zone One and immerse yourself in Whitehead’s writing.