So, let’s say I were pitching a book idea to you and I said something like…oh, I don’t know…like

so there’s this zombie, see, and he lives in his parent’s wine cellar, but it’s cool cause zombies just exist in the world, people discriminate against them and everything and they don’t really have rights, but anyway this particular zombie, let’s call him Andy, died in a car wreck that also killed his wife, unlike his wife, though, he woke back up a couple days later and, after being rounded up by the SPCA, was claimed by his parents and put in the cellar, his parents though, they barely tolerate his existence, and Andy doesn’t do much besides sit around the cellar, drink through his parent’s expensive wine stock, and attend Undead Anonymous meetings once a week, UA being a sort of self help group for the recently deceased and reanimated.

Given that description I am confident that most of you faithful Normalinauts out there would be, at the very least, interested in this story. Well, what I have just described to you is the basis for SG Browne’s novel Breather’s: A Zombie’s Lament.

The process of zombification? zombifaction? zombosis? is never explained, other than zombies have existed for a really long time, no one knows why some people reanimate as zombies and others don’t, and zombies are generally treated like animals. Stray zombies get rounded up by animal control, they have no rights, and fraternity guys routinely make a point of finding unsuspecting zombies and dismembering them.

Which is where the reader picks up with Andy, a few months after his reanimation. Of course, the story that plays out over the 300 pages of the book is fairly complex, but the cover image up there should at least warn you that, yes, there is zombie sex. Not explicitly…well, only slightly explicitly. Andy does find a zombie love interest and there are passages in which Andy (the book is told in first person from his point of view) describes his naked girlfriend so, consider yourselves warned. And, I’ll be honest, the zombie sex isn’t the most disturbing stuff in the book. In fact, some of the scenes with Andy and and his girlfriend are very endearing…and, alright I’ll admit it, at one point I found myself disturbingly aroused. But, the book is about zombies after all. Even though the book starts out with nary a human devoured you just know that won’t last…and it sure doesn’t.

The remarkable thing about the book, though, is that it does not revel in the grotesque (as any zombie story is wont to do). Even though he is a reanimated corpse, Andy is still a highly empathetic character. Particularly so, for me at least, because Andy’s accident leaves him separated from his still breathing daughter (who now lives with relatives). Andy has no way to see her, talk to her, and even his attempts to write her a letter are thwarted by his parents. While I’ve never been forced to separate from my kids, the way in which Browne writes Andy’s feelings about the separation really hit home for me.

And that’s just one small piece, in fact, of the really “human” way in which these zombies are presented. Like I said, eventually, humans (many humans) get consumed, but not in the mindless Night of the Living Dead sorta way. There’s even several helpful recipes in the book…in case you’re ever interested in making a Breather Split Pea Soup.

What I’m saying here is that this novel may seem like a throw away piece of fiction…like the book version of a popcorn movie…but it is so much more than that. The more I reflect on the work as a whole, in fact, the more I realize that it works on so many levels. And while the ending is ultimately very bitter (with maybe just a sprinkling of sweet), the experience of finishing the novel is so much more satisfying than the initial concept would lead one to assume.

Honestly, if you can stomach the whole “eating humans” thing, then I highly recommend this book.

Bombshell Rocks — Warpath

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