WARNING: This Young ADULT novel is mean and
nasty and intended for a mature audience. It is absolutely not appropriate for
younger readers. It is a gruesome, repugnant tale sure to warp young minds. Seriously.
The following is a three-part Afterword for All Together Now: A Zombie Story (you could probably read the actual book in less time).
I'm going to keep it mostly spoiler-free, but I am going to discuss
writing, theme, and some of the choices I made. If you haven't read the
book, this might be more interesting after you have. You can get the first 14 chapters free here.
Halfway
through writing
All Together Now: A Zombie Story, I realized the book was very much about my own fears (of
course) and that was when I decided to publish it no matter what. Allow me to elaborate:
Something
that's always struck me about zombies is that they are unique among the
most famous monsters. If a vampire bites you, but doesn't kill you, you
become a vampire. Oh no! You'll have to live forever with super powers
and a sexy, enchanting charisma. Oh the humanity! If a werewolf bites
you, you become a mostly unstoppable super-powered human able to hulk
out. True, you may be sad and whiny afterward and walk away from the
camera hitchhiking as sad music plays, but you'll mostly be okay.
If
a zombie bites you, you lose yourself. There is nothing desirable about
becoming a walking corpse, no longer in control of your own thoughts or
actions because you're dead. When a zombie bites you, you become like
every other zombie, indistinguishable from the horde. And more likely
than not, you're pretty gross:
"Mr. Goodwin?" I said.
"Are you—"
All right was how I meant to
finish, but when I turned to face him, I saw he was the furthest from all right
any of us will ever be.
He was dead.
Had to be.
The bearded right side of his face
was the same as ever, but the left half ended in ragged patches of skin and
hair where the flesh from his cheek to his ear had been torn away along with a
good chunk of forehead and scalp.
There were spongy layers of skin
covering his skull, but I could see parts of it as well as the bottom curve of
his eyeball which must've rolled back in its socket. It was milky white from
beginning to end.
I swore and leapt to my feet.
Mr. Goodwin's mouth opened and I
could see what was left of his facial muscles working.
Identifying
that a fear of zombies is in part a fear of conformity is hardly
ground-breaking stuff. But I haven't seen it presented elsewhere in quite the
same way I've done it. Some of you may remember me bugging
Courtney Summers to write
This Is Not A Test after I flipped for her incredible
YA novel
Cracked Up To Be. When I learned she loved zombies, I immediately saw the potential of a teenage zombie novel and she'd be the perfect YA writer to tackle it, not a
middle grade ninja like me.
Thankfully,
Courtney had her own unique take on zombies that's very different from and likely better than my own. Her book
is mostly about people and their emotional landscapes, mine is mostly
about zombies and their landscapes being strewn with blood and guts. But
the idea of a teenage zombie novel haunted me until I had to write this book.
After
all, who has more reason to fear conformity than a teenager? Adults
have mostly made their peace with the compromise we all have to make. But
toward the end of high school, many teens begin to realize that the
years they've spent in the education system have socialized them. The
purpose of school is to mold and build young minds, to transform unruly
children to civilized adults capable of interacting in our society. To prepare them to get up for an 8-hour day and do what someone else tells them (in the words of Pink Floyd, "hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!").
To
join a group is to conform. Being a part of society usually means food and
security in exchange for behaving in certain ways, unless of course the
townsfolk accuse you of being a witch, the Nazi party creates propaganda
against you, or the wealthy decide to enslave or imprison you, etc.
Teenagers
are invincible and never going to become their parents. But underneath
their boasts is a fear resulting from the knowledge that the larger
political body of adults surrounding them, like a horde of zombies, will
eventually assimilate them. Conformity is as inevitable as adulthood.
Teens
will have to work jobs, they will have to stand in line at the BMV,
they will have to attend social functions, they will have to pay taxes,
they will have to obey the law or face the consequences, some of them
will go to war, and on, and on, and on. They will become something like
their parents, and in America, where social mobility is at an all time
low, they will probably work similar jobs and live in similar homes as
their parents. They'll have children of their own and raise them to be
the next generation of the same.
As much as I could without getting in the way of the story (I hope), I've tried to reinforce this theme throughout
All Together Now: A Zombie Story. In my view, the teenage years involve being smart enough to realize one is being socialized, but usually not clever enough to stop the process (at least, I wasn't). Not
all high schools say the pledge of allegiance in the morning anymore,
but you can bet the students in my book do:)
A
theme inevitably emerges in a novel, whatever the author's intentions,
and I believe it's best when done deliberately and as minimally as
possible. You know you've gone too far if John Galt gives a 60-page
speech (never pass up an opportunity to stick it to Ayn Rand). Too much of a good thing leads to preaching rather than
storytelling, which is what the reader is paying you to do. So I tried
to
keep passages like this one to a minimum:
When
we reached the intersection of Kirkman Avenue and Harrington Street, I
turned left, but not before I saw the courthouse. Its exterior was
limestone and mostly still standing, though chunks of it had fallen to
the lawn.
But its inside was burned out, leaving a husk of what had been: a building that should be ashes but somehow still stood.
Ending a book with a metaphoric house collapsing is
all good and well for Annie Prouxl, but I'm just not that deep or that
precious. My protagonist has a clear cut goal: Ricky Genero has to get
his zombie brother to Kirkman's soda plant where he's been told the CDC
is developing a cure. Many of the events of the story are geared toward
motivating Ricky to make something right in a world where so much has
gone wrong until the reader (hopefully) believes Ricky will stop at
nothing to find the cure for his little brother. As the population has become living
dead, literally everyone is trying to kill Ricky and stop him
from accomplishing his goal. Zombie stories write themselves:)
I'm not afraid to
get my hands dirty. I know there's an anti-social streak in zombie
readers (and writers) and part of the reason we love zombie stories is the inherent promise
of grotesque violence. If a zombie story is to aspire to meaning and
thematic concern, it first has to deliver on the promise of blunt
entertainment. If the reader isn't emotionally invested in Ricky and his
journey, they're never going to care enough to ponder what the story
"means." So before I can concern myself with anything else, I have to fork over the goods and do my best to deliver on the promise of the premise:
A dead girl lurched from the side
of the bleachers, blocking our path to the exit. A flap of skin had been peeled
back from above her right eye to the top of her skull. The flesh of her stomach
and side from her armpit to her jeans had been ripped away. She moaned and
reached for us.
Ben gave her a wide berth, but he
couldn't reach the exit door without touching her.
The snarling behind us grew louder,
closer.
"Please move," I said.
The girl cocked her head and
stepped toward me, her lips drawing back to expose her teeth, and I knew she
didn't understand. She was beyond understanding
"Move," I said,
flinching.
I glanced back at the approaching
corpses and did what I had to. I swung my bat into the girl's face as hard as I
could.
She fell over with a screeching
thump on the glazed hardwood floor.
"I'm sorry."
The left side of her face was now
mangled and bleeding where I'd struck her, but the girl started to stand again
anyway.
"I'm so sorry." My hands
were trembling so badly it's a wonder I didn't drop my bat.
I've
said my piece and probably too much, so that's where we'll leave it.
Except, I can't write an afterword for this book and not address
religion. Was there ever an instrument of propaganda and social
conformity more powerful than the church? Religion is more dangerous
than a loaded gun and more impacting than a nuclear blast.
