Zone One
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys: A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. • "One of the best books of the year." —Esquire
After the worst of the plague is over, armed forces stationed in Chinatown’s Fort Wonton have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One. Mark Spitz is a member of one of the three-person civilian sweeper units tasked with clearing lower Manhattan of the remaining feral zombies. Zone One unfolds over three surreal days in which Spitz is occupied with the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder (PASD), and the impossible task of coming to terms with a fallen world. And then things start to go terribly wrong…
At once a chilling horror story and a literary novel by a contemporary master, Zone One is a dazzling portrait of modern civilization in all its wretched, shambling glory.
After the worst of the plague is over, armed forces stationed in Chinatown’s Fort Wonton have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One. Mark Spitz is a member of one of the three-person civilian sweeper units tasked with clearing lower Manhattan of the remaining feral zombies. Zone One unfolds over three surreal days in which Spitz is occupied with the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder (PASD), and the impossible task of coming to terms with a fallen world. And then things start to go terribly wrong…
At once a chilling horror story and a literary novel by a contemporary master, Zone One is a dazzling portrait of modern civilization in all its wretched, shambling glory.
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Community Reviews
I'm of two minds. The writing is beautiful, artful, almost...luscious. And yet...the story just isn't interesting. You get glimpses of how the story really could be something more, but then it gets washed under wave upon wave of this too-pretty, self-important prose. Like a Tennyson poem without any substance. And really, in the end, if there's no substance what's the point? Another reviewer wrote that this book was a "thinking man's zombie novel", but in reality it's just dressed up as a thinking man's zombie novel; a caricature. Because it remains completely unaware of it's own shortcomings it ends up more sad parody than clever pastiche.
Fabulous scathing critique of all the preoccupations of society. Very nihilistic. I loved the main character and the way his challenges before and after the last day were presented. I felt like I could relate to him and his problems even though he's a very emotionally reserved character. I also loved Gary and Kaitlyn, and how they were awful and wonderful in their own ways. Some of the last 1/5th of the book was a little convoluted with the present day conversations of numerous characters that didn't play a central role.
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