Book Review: Zone One

Zone One: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (New York: Doubleday, 2011. 272 pp)

Colson Whitehead was born in 1969 and raised in Manhattan. He attended Harvard College and afterward he began working as a reviewer for The Village Voice. Out of the gate, Whitehead’s fiction gained acclaim when his first novel, The Intuitionist, won the Quality Paperback Book Club’s New Voices Award. His work has earned him the Young Lions Fiction Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/Oakland Award, and a Whiting Writers Award. Also, Whitehead has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Knives and Reason 

Aristotle, when expanding on his defense of virtue ethics, contends that humans act ethically when they maximize the function for which they were created. Just like a knife acts “virtuously” when it is sharp enough to cut, Aristotle suggests that humans act virtuous when they engage in reasoning. The ability to use the complex human brain for social ends allows humans to act ethically in comparison to other animals.

Supposing Aristotle is correct in his assertions, do we, then, act immorally when we refuse to use our reasoning faculties? Or do we act amorally? What happens when external forces cause humans to act strictly on instinct? While reading Colson Whitehead’s post-apocalyptic zombie novel, Zone One, I couldn't help but consider ethics in dystopia.

What Happens After a Zombie Outbreak?

Zone One's Gary from The Composites 

Set in Manhattan, “Zone One” signifies a section of the city zoned for rehabilitation. The book’s protagonist, Mark Spitz—not the Olympic swimmer, this Mark Spitz earned his nickname fighting zombies—works on a three-person sweeper team with Gary, an ADD and trigger-happy individual, and Kaitlyn, the team leader and rule abider. The sweeper team searches every nook and cranny of building after building searching for zombie stragglers.

Before the book’s narrative began, an army of marines choppered into Manhattan on a mission to retake the city. During this time, wave after wave of zombies perished under heavy machine-gun fire. While Uptown remains infested with the undead, “Zone One” holds a minimal number of stragglers. While most malicious zombies instinctively ran into the teeth of the machine gun fire, a select few “malfunction” serenely remaining in places of supposed importance in their former lives. These stragglers are the zombies that the trio is charged to kill.

If You Look Back, You’re a Pillar of Salt 

Throughout the novel, Mark Spitz pauses to recollect the carnage that has occurred after “Last Night”—the name for the day that the zombie infliction took hold. We learn of the standard zombie narrative through his clouded memory. A disease breaks out; panic ensues; and everyone learns to fight for themselves. Often times, Mark Spitz cannot fathom how he has made it thus far:

“He was a thorough, inveterate B. It was his road. He studied for hours and there it waited for him, circled in red ink, oddly welcoming, silently forgiving. Or he refused to open his books and gorged instead on a prime-time platter of sitcoms: he’d still get a B. It was a little play he performed each week and he hit his marks instinctively, stalking the boards of mediocrity. He was not unintelligent; in fact, his instructors agreed that he was often quite perceptive and canny in his contributions to discussion, a ‘true pleasure to have in the classroom.’ The adjectives in his report cards, drawn from a special teachers’ collection of mild yet approving modifiers, described an individual of broader gifts than implied by the grades delivered at the end of each term. All the parts were there. Extra screws, even. There was just something wrong in the execution” (56). 

A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes 

Years after Last Night, organized reconstruction begins. Somewhat comically, the headquarters of the “American Phoenix” buds in Buffalo.

“He’d never been to Buffalo, and now it was the exalted foundry of the future. The Nile, the Cradle of Reconstruction. All the best and brightest (and, most important, still breathing) had been flown up to Buffalo, where they got the best grub, reveled in 24-7 generators and uncurtailed hot showers on command. In turn, they had to rewind catastrophe. Rumor was they had two of the last Nobel laureates working on things up there—useful ones, none of the Peace Prize or Literature stuff—chowing down on hearty brain-fortifying grub, scavenged fish oil and whatnot. If they could reboot Manhattan, why not the entire country? These were the contours of the new optimism” (35).

Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder 

Photo by Andrew C. Mace

However, the characters in this rebuilding state live in a daily stupor. Having learned to survive by instinct, the people—Mark Spitz included—in a certain sense have lost a part of their humanity. Whitehead introduces a term early in the novel called PASD.

“One canny psychotherapist—Dr. Neil Herkimer, who’d made a fortune in the days before the flood with a line of self-help books imparting ‘The Herkimer Solution to Human Unhappiness’—delivered the big buzzword of the moment: PASD, or Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder… Everyone suffered from PASD. Herkimer put it at seventy-five percent of the surviving population, with the other twenty-five percent under the sway of preexisting mental conditions that were, of course, exacerbated by the great calamity. In the new reckoning, a hundred percent of the world was mad. Seemed about right” (54).

With the entire world living in PASD, has humanity lost the defining quality of humanness? At one point, Mark Spitz proclaims,

“He missed shame and guilt and a time when something higher than dumb instinct directed his actions” (161).

Would Aristotle conclude that humanity has lost its ability to act virtuously? I would think so. Without the guiding conscience of reason, the basic survival instinct has altered what it means to be human in Zone One. Humanity, as always, reveals itself to be a persevering bunch, but PASD makes reconstruction all the much harder.

Difficult to Remember 

On the whole, Zone One left me entertained. But I felt that it was weak in a few places. Most glaringly, when Whitehead directs the reader into the past dissecting the events around the apocalypse, the narrative becomes confusing. Many seemingly insignificant characters receive detailed passages while the stories of some seemingly significant characters fizzle without resolution. Perhaps Whitehead intended to display the corroded nature of human reasoning in these flashbacks. If you encountered multiple years of hell where each day could realistically be your last, would you remember specifics from the past? Even if this motif was Whitehead’s intention, the confusion of the flashbacks hinders the overarching narrative.

But despite my reservations, I enjoyed this book. If you love the zombie genre, speculative fiction, or a literary master jumping into genre fiction, Zone One is an excellent choice for your to-be-read pile.

Verdict: 4 out of 5

---

Posted by: Donovan Richards

Affiliate Links:

 

Television Show Review: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead: Season Two created by Frank Darabont; produced by Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Robert Kirkman, and Charles H. Eglee (Circle of Confusion and Valhalla Motion Pictures)

Starring Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, and Chandler Riggs.

A Premature Review

Partly because I’m currently engaged in some lengthy books and need to post some content, I am reviewing the current season of The Walking Dead despite the fact that it is early in its second season.

As I mentioned in my review of the show last year, I am not a fan of the zombie genre. Yet, the more I consider the subtext beneath these post-apocalyptic narratives, the more the genre fascinates me.

Zombie as Metaphor

At its core, a zombie story explores human frailty. The zombie functions as a metaphor for the inevitability of death. Like a contagion, the threat gradually rises until no hope remains for escape. In other words, the zombie genre requires the viewer to encounter his or her own death.

In movie form, zombie stories move quickly with boatloads of action before the narrative resolves in the finality of death. The Walking Dead, however, must unfold slowly due to its serialized nature. As such, a sensory assault seen in most zombie movies would drain the viewer.  With a show format, The Walking Dead needs drama in order to break up the intense zombie scenes.

I Want to Like the Characters before They Die!

And, honestly, this drama is the Achilles’ heel of the show so far. Of course, in light of a dying world, it is nearly impossible to imagine the ways in which humans would cope. But, the attempts to humanize the characters in this show sound hollow. In truth, I am not drawn to any of the characters on this show.  As these people die (and we know they will, let us not deceive ourselves), I want to like them. Stated differently, it is not dramatic if unlikable characters die.

So, despite high ratings and much promise, I find it difficult to give The Walking Dead, a perfect score. The show has promise. In the third episode, we find the kind of cliffhanger that creates real characters. If you love zombies, you need to watch The Walking Dead. As for me, I continue to watch hoping that the writers put everything together.

Verdict: 3 of 5

Television Show Review: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead produced by Frank Darabont, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Robert Kirkman, and Charles H. Eglee (Circle of Confusion and Valhalla Motion Pictures, airs Sunday nights on AMC)

Starring Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, and Chandler Riggs.

In an effort to proclaim full disclosure, I must admit that I am not much of a zombie fan.

This sub-genre of horror has always seemed low budget, poorly written, and weakly acted. Zombie films typically depict the survival instinct at a basic level. Although this theme is entertaining on a “what if” level, the zombie theme is incapable of constructing the dramatic subtleties that differentiate fantastic movies from standard run-of-the-mill productions.

Where Are We?

Last night’s premier of AMC’s the Walking Dead, however, destroys my preconceived notions about zombie narratives. The story begins with the protagonist, Sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln), receiving the damaging end of a bullet that results in a comatose state. Deputy Grimes awakes to the blinking lights of an abandoned hospital. This portion of the narrative leads me to the first differentiating factor in this show from other zombie stories: the apocalyptic infestation already occurred. Similar to I am Legend, the rise of the walking dead is only influential to the extent that it effects the current time. In other words, the Walking Dead focuses on the result of the zombie inflicted world rather than the cause of it.

Later in the pilot episode and after Deputy Grimes realizes the drastic differences in the new world he inhabits, he begins an expedition to Atlanta, the urban hub of the region. Having heard that the military commandeered Atlanta as a safe spot from zombies and infection, Grimes travels toward the city broadcasting on emergency channels in hopes of connecting with other human beings. Unbeknownst to him, Grimes’ broadcasts are received by a remnant hiding in the woods. Sadly, the group’s pleas for Grimes to avoid Atlanta fall on deaf ears as he treks toward a city not blockaded for safety but instead overrun by zombies.

Can’t Tell the City from the Woods

I found this urban versus agrarian theme fascinating. By densely placing danger at the heart of an urban center and simultaneously suggesting that wilderness is a refuge, The Walking Dead critiques the human tendency to congregate in urban areas. The density of a population forces it to rely heavily on each other for production. One person might boast a prodigious talent for clothes making, while another might grow the best apples. If each person agrees to specialize and then trade the extras, economic theory proclaims that the society is capable of producing more. However, such production trade-offs force society into dependency. If one section fails, the whole economy falls apart.

In contrast, the pastoral view of wilderness transforms human dependency to a reliance on nature. The post-apocalyptic world of the Walking Dead infers the dangers of urbanized human culture and the positive qualities of an agrarian lifestyle.

Episode one of the Walking Dead intrigued me both for its starting point in a world already broken and also its depiction of urban and rural relationships. I excitedly await the second episode and recommend the series to you provided you can stomach the zombie theme.