ZONE ONE: A NOVEL by Colson Whitehead

 



Originally published in 2011 by Doubleday.

I don't often read zombie novels. I have reviewed 1600+ books and this is only my second one featuring zombies. They're not really my thing, but I figured that if an author who won two Pulitzer Prizes wrote a zombie book, it must be worth reading.

I was wrong.

The premise behind the book is quite good, but it is an over-written mess.

Mark Spitz (a nickname) is a man who has gone through his life as a B/B+ type of guy. Never the smartest guy in class, never the first guy picked to play for the schoolyard games, but certainly not close to the last. He kind of floats through life being "good enough."

The reader meets Mark Spitz well into the Zombie Apocalypse. He is working as part of a mopping up crew in New York City. He and his crew are seeking out Zombies that the military may have missed in their sweep through the city. The worst of the Zombie attacks has passed and a provisional government is working out of Buffalo, New York. 

This new government is very concerned with crafting a narrative of the recovery - a narrative of hope and rebuilding with an official theme song and heroes and brand name sponsors and news from all of the other little colonies that it has established on the East Coast.

But, there are rumblings that things aren't going according to the plan...

My take: 

Whitehead has said that he was inspired by his childhood love of Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. King's The Stand is certainly a benchmark to judge all "end of the world" books by, but his lesser-known Cell has the most in common with this book. 

Cell has a focused plot with little character development (a rarity for King). Zone One's plot is constantly interrupted with flashbacks - some fill in important gaps, some seemingly just to fill up some pages. That's not quite fair, but the incessant flashbacks just ruined the momentum of the story. I think it would have been better if he had just cut the book up into its little narrative chunks and placed them in chronological order.

For a reason that is never explained, this new government is obsessed with re-
establishing New York City. As one of the most crowded urban environments in the United States, I would think that NYC would be a horrible place for a fledgling government to spend its limited resources. High urban populations would mean more zombies per city block. Why not just stay in Buffalo and take over Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, areas with low populations and less zombies? I guess it was more of the symbolism over substance pattern that this new government had already exhibited. Yes, re-establishing NYC would be a major feat, but would it be worth the cost? I think it is really a product of Whitehead leading a NYC-centric life, almost like he couldn't imagine that they would abandon New York City and head to West Virginia or Arkansas or South Dakota. 

On a different note, my edition of this book (first edition) was written in a font that I found very hard to read - tiny and very busy. 

I rate this novel 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ZONE ONE: A NOVEL by Colson Whitehead.

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