Book Review: The Dead (Permuted Press)
The Dead
Book Release Date: November 14, 2009
316 pages
Publisher: Permuted Press
Written By: Mark E. Rogers
Review By: Annie Riordan
Zombies. They’re everywhere: on the screen, in revamped Jane Austen stories, in survival manuals and haiku, graphic novels and T-shirts. Their popularity has exploded with the turn of the new century and shows no sign of abating any time soon. I personally tend to the (admittedly small) horror section in the bookstore that is my day job, and I have seen more zombie novels and anthology collections spring up in the last 6 months than I have in the entire 12 years I’ve worked there.
The influx of zombie paraphernalia is astonishing, but not particularly surprising. Given the current state of the economy, a dark depression looming on the horizon, and the approach of 2012, a lot of people are forecasting apocalypse, although I think Stephen Colbert put it best on September 23, 2008 when he announced that: “OhMyGodSocietyIsCollapsingAndWeWillSoonBeDevouringEachOtherInTheStreetsLikeDogsAndACrippledOne-EyedBoyWillBeKingIfWeDon’tFixThisByNextWeek!” In these dark days when it does indeed seem like the entire world is turning on itself and consuming all it can to the point of cannibalization, of course zombies will be popular. People want to see their fears solidified into a recognizable monster that we can perhaps turn and defeat or, at best, outrun. And I’m not even going to get into the whole “running zombies vs. slow zombies” debate. Screw that. The point is that zombies are scary because they are us. They are us at our absolute worst: selfish, greedy, emotionless, soulless eating machines without compassion or pity. In short, zombies scare the living shit out of me. I have nightmares about zombie apocalypse, and have already decided that, if and/or when the dead rise and begin eating the living, I am going to nail myself up inside of the crawlspace in my ceiling with a year’s supply of bottled water and granola bars and just wait it out with the squirrels.
However, novelist and illustrator Mark Rogers isn’t interested in sticking to the popular blueprint of zombies as mindless, shambling meat processors. In his horror novel, The Dead, the zombies are not only reanimated, they’re just plain animated. They walk, they talk, they plan and organize, and they’re not interested in eating living human flesh. Their agenda is much more insidious, to the point of making disembowelment and being eaten alive seem like a preferable option.
Gary Holland is having terrible nightmares. Immediately after dreaming that his father’s corpse has freed itself from its coffin in an unholy display of rage, Gary’s wife receives the fateful phone call: dad is indeed dead. Returning home for the funeral, another nightmare – more horrifying than the first – invades his sleep. The living and the dead have been called before the throne of God to receive their judgment. Awakening just before hearing himself pronounced innocent or guilty, Gary is shocked to learn that his wife, his brother Max and several other family members and friends had the exact same dream, all of them awakening before the verdict can be delivered.
When Gary and Max’s mother disappears from her bedroom – and seemingly right out of her nightgown as well – everyone is flummoxed, especially when further reports begin rolling in from all over the country: people are apparently vanishing into thin air. The word “rapture” is never mentioned, and the funeral for Gary’s dad goes on as planned.
But when the graveyard ground rips open and begins vomiting forth its contents, Gary and Max realize they’re in deep shit. Max, with his military training and no-nonsense approach to combat, is soon separated from his milquetoast brother who doesn’t seem capable of boiling water without written instructions. Taking off in different directions with a gaggle of mismatched survivors in tow, the brothers take refuge where they can and manage to keep one step ahead of the growing army of demon-possessed corpses wandering the wasteland that was once a peaceful coastal town. Will they live long enough to be reunited? And even if they do, will there be anything left of the earth to inherit?
Very much built atop a solid foundation of Catholicism, The Dead also spends a lot of time debating what makes one worthy of entrance into heaven and what makes one eligible for membership in hell. When the characters aren’t running or fighting, they’re having deep theological discussions in dark basements, arguing about whether God is a loving, forgiving, merciful being or a sadistic pig who wants to watch them all suffer.
I’m not gonna lie: these deep discussions are the driving force of the story, which will bore some, annoy others, and probably outrage a good percentage of atheists. But having grown up Catholic myself, I found these debates more disturbing than all of the book’s gory scenes of zombie violence combined. I actually had to put the book aside for a week or so after a rash of nightmares interrupted my already precarious sleep cycle. Because, as much as zombies scare me, the unknown scares me more. Having experienced what I often describe as “the world’s most boring NDE” (near death experience) after a major illness in ’05, I came away certain that there is indeed something after this life…but what? And will I be found wanting when my own judgment day comes?
Okay, whoa, that was all kindsa profound and deep and shit. Let’s back up. Is The Dead a good zombie story? Yes. Is it for everyone? No. But for the open-minded and the reflective, it’s pretty fucking terrifying. Mark Rogers is no slouch when it comes to illustrating his tale either, and the 36 images within are impressive, falling somewhere in between Clive Barker’s drawings for “The Thief of Always” and Michael Whelan’s Dark Tower paintings.
If you’re just looking for a mindless action tale of blood-soaked zombie flesh orgies, look elsewhere. But if you’re up for a serious, intelligent debate about religious beliefs and church doctrine, give The Dead a go. It’s a good mix of both: God and guts, two good things that go pretty well together.
