User:RKill/sandbox
| Author | Colson Whitehead |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror, Novel, post-apocalyptic fiction |
| Publisher | Doubleday (hardcover) & Anchor Books (paperback) |
Publication date | 2011 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 259 pp (hardcover), 322 pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-52807-8 (hardcover), 978-0-307-45517-8 (paperback) |
| OCLC | 699763904 |
| 813’.54—dc22 | |
| LC Class | 2011008339 |
Zone One is a 2011 The New York Times best-selling novel[1] by African American author Colson Whitehead. Zone One is part genre fiction, part literary fiction—a zombie story in the hands of a Pullitzer-nominated[2] novelist.
Publication Details[edit]
- Written by Colson Whitehead
- First published: Doubleday, New York, 2011
Plot summary[edit]
A virus has laid waste to civilization, turning the infected into flesh-eating and mortally contagious zombies. But events have stabilized, and the rebuilding process has begun. Over a three-day span, “Mark Spitz” and his fellow “sweepers”—other survivors of the apocalypse—patrol portions of New York City, eliminating zombies as part of a mission to make the city inhabitable once again. Flashbacks pepper the narrative, explaining how “Mark Spitz” survived the apocalypse to date and got his nickname along the way.
Critical reception[edit]
Reviewing Zone One for Esquire, Tom Chiarella wrote that “Whitehead brilliantly reformulates an old-hat genre to ask the epidemic question of a teetering history—the question about the possibility of survival” and called the book ““one of the best books of the year.” [3] While Chiarella’s review establishes the high-water mark of praise heaped on the book, most critics were similarly impressed. Glen Duncan, who likened the pairing of genre and literary fiction to “an intellectual dating a porn star,” concluded that Zone One “is a cool, thoughtful and, for all its ludic violence, strangely tender novel, a celebration of modernity and a pre-emptive wake for its demise.” [4] Charlie Jane Anders observed “this is one zombie story that nobody's ever told before” and opined “the book pays off marvelously.” [5]
Duncan and Anders both had criticisms of the novel, however. Duncan, took issue with the prose, writing, “[s]tylistically the novel takes a while to settle,” but that when it does, “Whitehead writes with economy, texture and punch.” [4] Anders, meanwhile, wondered if the heavy, unpredictable, and sometimes indiscernible use of flashbacks represented a deliberate attempt “to deny the reader any feeling of narrative satisfaction, through denseness and obfuscation.” [5]
References[edit]
- ^ Jennifer Schuessler. "Inside List". The New York Times.
- ^ 2002 Pulitzer Prize citation page
- ^ Tom Chiarella. "How It Ends".
- ^ a b Glen Duncan. "A Plague of Urban Undead in Lower Manhattan". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Charlie Jane Anders. "Colson Whitehead's Zone One shatters your post-apocalyptic fantasies". io9.
Category:2011 novels Category:Novels by Colson Whitehead Category:Novels set in New York City Category:Doubleday (publisher) books
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