Saturday, January 1, 2011

A Zombie Memoir

This Christmas was a minimalist Christmas for me. I didn't get many gifts because my family and I decided that instead of getting big presents for each other, we'd donate to charity. We went through Kiva and made loans to people. I was cool.

One of the presents I did get was from my friend Amanda. She got me a book titled Brains: A Zombie Memoir. It is very much what it sounds like. Amanda knows the author, Robin Becker, and that means that not only do I have a copy of the book, I have an autographed copy.
Now, as a zombie afficionado, I've seen a lot of zombie movies and read a lot of zombie stories. This is the first time, however, that I've ever come across one that is based in the POV of the zombie. It's a fun experience. I like the way she's approached zombie lore - a lot of the classic trends are there, but then the twist is that some of the zombies aren't entirely the shuffling undead. The POV character is a former English professor who's retained his ability to think and to write. As the plot goes on, he meets other special zombies who have retained some of their human abilities. It's a cool concept and I like the balance between the classic and her unique twist.
I'm about half way through the book so far and there are some interesting complications. I'm really curious to see what she does with them.

1 comment:

Jenny Maloney said...

I've gotta say that the premise definitely takes some creativity. (My unfortunate take on a Zombie memoir would be along the lines of "Uh?" "Ugh." "Ughhhh.")