Zombie: A Novel
by Joyce Carol Oates
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joyce Carol OatesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-09-15
ISBN: 0061778915
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Ecco
Book Reviews of Zombie: A Novel
Book Review: Damn you, Joyce!
Summary: 5 Stars
I knew I was a fan of Joyce Carol Oates after being forced to read her by an English prof in college. She has a perspective and a skill with prose that really impressed my impressionable bachelor's degree mind. I'll grant, however, I am not a big reader and don't keep up with Oates' complete catalog. It was about a month ago when I ran across this title and thought, "Wow, Joyce Carol Oates is doing her take on the latest zombie phenomenon? I need to check this out." Dumb a**. Of course, she's not writing about zombie zombies. But that's kinda what I thought when I started reading it. I didn't know anything about it, much less that this book was originally published more than a decade ago.
I think coming into it virtually blind made the book a more intense experience for me vs. someone who has read the reviews, synopsis and so on. (Kinda like how I enjoyed "The Blair Witch Project" more than most because I went into it blind and believing.)
For that reason, I'm not sure how much I actually want to say about the story. When I got the book, I began reading it right away just because I was in a reading mood. Then I couldn't put it down. I wanted to, though. I felt like throwing up at least four or five times while reading it.
I wasn't finished with the story when I had to put the book down to go make a living. After I'd put it down I was reluctant to pick it up again. I'd pass by it on the bookshelf and give it the stink eye.
Then, finally, the other night all the circumstances collided making it the right time to finish this book.
It's a slim read, practically a novelette. But it's a testament to Oates' abilities. She knows just how to turn a phrase, flip syntax, reroute a time line - like a puppet master pulling at the threads of your emotion. It's so funny how unassuming she seems in person, her lady-next-doorness. She's pretty damn brilliant.
Despite that, I cannot recommend this book to anyone I know because it is just too damn creepy. It would be like recommending rape or something. That's it. My mind has been raped! Okay, well, it's not that bad. Well, sorta. I don't know. I mean, it's basically the journal of a sociopath who describes in calm self-righteous detail his gruesome and terrifying deeds.
It got me to thinking about how a lot of people are like this, maybe everyone. Not the horrifying sadosexual acts, but just that sociopathic drive to get what you want - trudging a path to a self-serving goal without a thought to those hurt along the way.
Yet Quentin is hurt by those he hurt. He finds ways to be offended and victimized by his own victims as he stalks and tortures them - completely insane.
In the end you realize, really, Quentin is the zombie - dead inside, a soulless automaton on a path of destruction. I so desperately wanted to reach through the pages and stop him. But I couldn't. I could only read on, paralyzed. The horror.
That night, after I'd put the book down, I got ready for bed, got under the covers and turned out the light. About 10 minutes later I got up, grabbed Zombie and put it outside on the patio, went back in and locked the door.
Because I'm such a contemplative reader, I usually keep all the books I read. I like to refer back to them, remember lines and phrases. However, "Zombie" is going with me on my next visit to the used book store - it will ride in the trunk of the car, of course. I don't need Quentin anywhere near me again. Though I am afraid he will forever reside in my paranoia.
Summary of Zombie: A Novel
Meet Quentin P.
He is a problem for his professor father and his loving mother, though of course they do not believe the charge (sexual molestation of a minor) that got him in that bit of trouble.
He is a challenge for his court-appointed psychiatrist, who nonetheless is encouraged by the increasingly affirmative quality of his dreams and his openness in discussing them.
He is a thoroughly sweet young man for his wealthy grandmother, who gives him more and more, and can deny him less and less.
He is the most believable and thoroughly terrifying sexual psychopath and killer ever to be brought to life in fiction, as Joyce Carol Oates achieves her boldest and most brilliant triumph yet?a dazzling work of art that extends the borders of the novel into the darkest heart of truth.
A hero who gets into the mind of a serial killer is a fixture of television crime shows, but such stories are usually disappointing, because the viewer knows it's just a gimmick. Not so with this unusual little novel, which The New York Times called a "note-perfect, horror-comic ventriloquization of a half-bright, infantile serial killer." Joyce Carol Oates has so convincingly written through the voice of a killer, you will feel nervous while reading at how familiar, how human, he is. Part of how she achieves the effect is through sparing use of bizarre capitalization (e.g., "MOON" and "FRAGMENT") and crude drawings done with a felt-tip pen. But the language is what makes it come alive, as in such weird statements as "My whole body is a numb tongue." This book was winner of the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.
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