Colson Whitehead is most likely the first MacArthur genius who’s published a zombie novel, said Rohan Preston in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The author of John Henry Days and The Intuitionist possesses serious literary credentials, but he always knew that one day he’d take on the undead. Whitehead’s Zone One, which chronicles a zombie invasion of New York, was inspired by a dream he’s been having since he was 12. “Some people have anxiety dreams about talking to an assembly and they’re naked or they forgot the big presentation,” he says. “I’ve had zombie dreams for the last 30 years, where it’s the underworld, I’m with people or not, they’re fast or slow, they talk, they don’t, I escape or don’t.”
Zone One owes a debt to the movies Whitehead grew up with, both about zombies and about his New York hometown, said Jennifer Vineyard in New York. “Whatever my brother and I could rent—splatter movies, Hammer horror, Dario Argento, George Romero,” he says. And then there were dystopian flicks like Escape From New York, which captured Whitehead’s own sense that his city was crumbling. “I thought they were documentaries for a long time,” he says. A mass crisis set in New York instantly evokes 9/11. “That’s in there, for sure,” he says. But Whitehead also just sees New York as a zombie kind of town—a place where it’s not unreasonable to fear that an innocuous-looking crowd could suddenly turn against you. “There’s a herd of zombies in Grand Central right now,” he says.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'A financial windfall for Iranian terrorism'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Orangutan heals cut with medicinal plantSpeed Read A Sumatran orangutan in Indonesia has been self-medicating to heal a wound on his cheek
-
Turkey halts trade with Israel in latest Gaza riftSpeed Read The country plans to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”