Zone One-Colson Whitehead

Zone One
Colson Whitehead
Doubleday, Oct 18 2011, $25.95
ISBN: 9780385528078

Now known as Mark Spitz, he wanted to live in Manhattan after witnessing the lifestyle of his Uncle Lloyd vs. the boredom of his parents who proved reincarnation exists having done the numbing drill for the zillionth time. He assumed law school was the ticket to New York, New York though his grades were lacking; selling high end coffee to the rich and wannabes is not the way to swim to the gold. Instead the Last Night Plague became his avenue as he joined the clean up crew and became known as Mark Spitz of the Omega Unit.

On orders from the government VIPs in a safe opulent green zone in Buffalo, the army reclaimed Zone One, everything below Canal Street. The leaders push the American Phoenix Rising renewal highlighted by the upbeat song Stop! Can You Hear the Eagle Roar? Spitz and the other Omega Unit civilian volunteers conduct a dangerous building by building search for the infected living dead in Zone One. Three days of search and destroy has left Spitz on the brink of lunacy; that will be dubbed by the psychology department as Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder.

Using the zombie craze as a means, Colson Whitehead writes an intriguing brilliant satire that lampoons Manhattan and by default America. The story line focuses on volunteer exterminator Spitz who over three days goes from gung ho to burn out. Timely with the recent debt fiasco, assault on public workers to pay political tabs and the middle class financial depression, this terrific complicated American allegory is summed up by the protagonist’s father: “things will be even worse than they are now."

Harriet Klausner