Book #26 of 2023:
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
The modern ‘zombie apocalypse’ genre was already in full swing in 2006 when this book made its rather curious debut, with the associated tropes well-known enough to be mined for comedy in films like Shaun of the Dead (2004) or the later Zombieland (2009). Anyone paying attention to the project’s pedigree likely would have expected such a light touch here too, since author Max Brooks is the son of famed humorist Mel Brooks and a former Saturday Night Live writer in his own right, whose previous publication, 2003’s The Zombie Survival Guide, seemed a low-effort and tongue-in-cheek way to cash in on the undead craze. Surprisingly, though, this follow-up strikes a tone both deadly earnest and terrifically insightful, cementing its status as a major touchstone for subsequent zombie fiction.
It’s not a traditional novel with a core protagonist and a sustained storyline, either, although I understand the poorly-received film adaptation tries to graft such a narrative into place. The text is instead presented as a sequence of interviews with various survivors of a recent global catastrophe, each of whom has a distinctive recollection and perspective on events. A minor plot arc traces the outbreak through to the logistics of its spread and eventual containment efforts, but most chapters are still pretty discrete from one another in terms of causality, cast, space, and time.
The title benefits from its expansive approach, underscored on audiobook by a fantastic assortment of narrators with the ensuing range of accents. We hop from country to country, seeing how cultural differences have manifested in an array of responses to the crisis, none of which have been especially successful. I’ve seen some contemporary reviews identifying this as a veiled critique of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq and/or Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two decades on, it seems more timeless to me, grimly highlighting how the human elements of personal ambition, xenophobia, and slow-moving bureaucracy could enable any disaster to spiral out of control. The early sections are particularly bracing to read after witnessing the real-life COVID-19 pandemic similarly move faster than any of our imperfect quarantine attempts could manage to prevent.
There are moments of bravery, sacrifice, and fierce joy in these pages too, so it’s not a total downer. (And after all, the very premise does situate the ‘war’ as a problem of the immediate past, with humanity weakened and reduced but ultimately triumphant.) Certain scenes, along with the overall atmosphere, have proven indelible distillations of our species at its highest and its lowest both. It’s decidedly not for the faint-of-heart, but there’s a textured vividness to everything Brooks has the characters relate, his writing always refusing to turn and share that satirical wink that would allow us to take this less seriously or cheer on the carnage at a bloodless distance. Zombies can be a punchline elsewhere, but here they’re simply the terrible and relentless enemy that almost destroyed us all.
[Content warning for gun violence, suicide, cannibalism, gore, pedophilia, rape, ableism, racism, antisemitism, and homophobia including slurs.]
★★★★☆
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