Life and Death in Chechnya

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars



This beautiful and haunting novel is one of my favorite books of 2013. It takes place in post-war Chechnya, but don't be alarmed if you don't know much about the Chechen conflict with Russia — the rich storytelling and the gorgeous prose will draw you in, and by the end of the book you could captivate an audience with these wartime stories. 

But first, you must meet Havaa, a precocious little girl whose father was just taken by federal forces, probably never to be seen again. Havaa ran into the woods to hide, which is why the soldiers didn't find her. The girl's mother is dead and she has no one else. A neighbor, Akhmed, helps Havaa escape to a nearby town and convinces a doctor, Sonja, to look after her. Soon our cast of characters will expand and we will meet Akhmed's wife, Havaa's father, Sonja's sister, and other residents in the village of Eldar, each of them with a story to tell.

One of my favorite characters was Sonja, a tough doctor who left Chechnya to attend medical school in London, but she returned to her war-torn country to try and help her sister, Natasha, who later disappeared: 

"Though she was the elder, Sonja was always thought of as Natasha's sister, the object rather than the subject of any sentence the two shared. She walked alone down the school corridors, head sternly bent toward the stack of books in her arms ... Sonja had more academic journal subscriptions than friends. She could explain advanced calculus to her fifth-form algebra teacher but couldn't tell a joke to a boy at lunch. Even in the summer months, she had the complexion of someone who spent too much time in a cellar. Everyone knew Sonja was destined for great things, but no one knew what to do with her until then."

Another character I loved was Akhmed, a man who studied to be a doctor but who would rather have been an artist. He jokes that he is the worst doctor in Chechnya, but he still manages to help his patients and their families, sometimes by drawing portraits of those who have been killed or taken by the feds.

Anthony Marra's writing is beautiful, with stunning sentences that made me pause and reread them. If I hadn't been reading a library book I would have underlined innumerable paragraphs. (The page-long sentence on p. 139 was so emotional and breathtaking that I actually gasped.) Each chapter opens with a timeline, pinpointing a year between 1994 and 2004, and the flashbacks illuminate what happened to our characters during the war. While the chapter focuses on one character's perspective, the stories ebb and flow together like overlapping melodies. 

This is a novel whose plotting and gracefulness I admired so much that as soon as I had finished it, I immediately wanted to start over and read it again. What details! What connections! This is the kind of novel I love to read -- one that is complex and meaningful and full of humanity and life and I wish I could give a copy to every bookish friend I know. Ann Patchett, who is one of my favorite writers, told The New York Times that this was her favorite book she's read this year. Agreed.

Note: If you're wondering what the title means, it is taken from a definition in a medical dictionary: "Life: a constellation of vital phenomena -- organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation."

Humor, Friendship and Devotion

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
1989
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars




This is the book that made me want to be a writer. I read it in high school after my favorite English teacher wrote down the title on a Post-It note and said, "You need to read this." I immediately went and found a copy and had it finished it by the end of the week. 

There is no way I can write a review that is worthy of this novel, but I shall try. It is the story of two boys in New Hampshire in the 1950s: the narrator is Johnny Wheelwright, whose family is wealthy; and his friend, Owen Meany. How to describe Owen? He was small and light, and he had a loud, high-pitched voice. He was smart and a loyal friend. Owen's parents were a bit odd, and his family was poor enough that the Wheelwrights often helped Owen with tuition and clothing.

The first chapter brings a tragedy: Johnny and Owen are playing baseball. Owen, who doesn't usually get to bat because he was so small, was told by the coach to go ahead and swing. Owen hits a foul ball that strikes Johnny's mother and kills her. Johnny is devastated and has trouble forgiving Owen, but they eventually make peace, thanks to a stuffed armadillo toy. (Thus explaining the armadillo pictured on some editions.)

The rest of the chapters cover the boys as they grow up and go to prep school. Owen has a gift for writing and pens some inflammatory columns in the school newspaper. There is also a hilarious prank that Owen pulls on a teacher he doesn't like, which involves a car, some athletes and a stage.

One of my favorite sections of the book describes a church Christmas pageant that goes horribly awry. Owen, who can be a bit bossy, takes over the pageant and assigns himself the role of Baby Jesus, even though in previous years it was just a doll. It's a laugh-out-loud disaster, and almost every year at Christmastime I'll pull out this book and reread the chapter.

When the boys turn 18, the Vietnam War is escalating and Owen signs up for the Reserve Officers Training Corps, which will pay for his college tuition while he serves. Owen even comes up with a plan to spare Johnny from having to go to Vietnam. Owen always has a plan, you see.

The plot slowly builds and builds, and I would describe it as a crescendo. There is a purpose to everything in the story, and by the end of the book, we understand why things had to be exactly what they were.

If you are a first-time reader of this novel, I need to warn you that there is a difficult passage at the beginning. Johnny, who is now an adult and has left the United States and moved to Canada, discusses his feelings about religion. I think this is the point where some readers get frustrated and abandon the book, but I urge you, I implore you, I beg you -- do not give up. There is a reason for it. If you can power through the discussion of churches, you will break through to a wonderful story.

Speaking of religion, I would be remiss not to mention the comparison to Jesus that Irving made. Whenever Owen speaks, his dialogue is in ALL CAPS. Bible readers will note that Jesus' words were printed in an all-red font in many editions. There are other similarities to Christ, but the less said on this, the better.

I have reread this book many times since I first read it in 1990, and each time, it moves me again. Some novels are easy to explain -- this one is not. It's a marvelous mix of comedy and drama and bildungsroman and the meaning of our lives, and I am grateful to have it in my life. I am not a religious person, but I became so attached to the character of Owen that thinking about him can make me a bit misty-eyed. He is complex and fleshed out in a way that few fictional characters are. 

Note: This book meant so much to me that I was horrified to hear that Hollywood made it into a movie. There is no way this book could be captured on film. Luckily someone had the good sense to change the title -- probably a demand of Mr. Irving -- but I have no intention of ever seeing it. I have a hobby of comparing movies adaptations with the source material, but this book is the exception. I want to remember it in its pure form. Owen would want it that way.

Until Death

Until Death by James L. Thane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Men are being murdered and Phoenix cop Sean Richardson is on the case. When an escort comes forward saying all the men were listed in her missing appointment book, Sean and his partner Maggie race against time to warn the men. But the escort has someone threatening her as well...

I know it's terribly unfashionable to talk about author behavior but James L. Thane is one of the most personable and least intrustive Goodreads Authors out there. Not only did he not try to push his book on me, I actually had to shame him into sending me a copy to review.

Until Death is James' second novel and the second appearance of Sean Richardson as well. It's been a while since I read No Place to Die but it was easy to step back into Sean Richardson's life. Sean and Maggie are back and running down leads, trying to catch a killer and figure out who's stalking Gina Gallagher.

Until Death is James L. Thane's love letter to the police procedural but manages to steer clear of a lot of genre cliches. I felt like Richardson was a good cop without being some kind of super hero. Richardson is realistically haunted by the untimely death of his wife and prefers to be alone rather than bedding anything with a pulse like a lot of detective characters. Maggie McClinton and Gina Gallagher were both well-written characters, far from the cardboard cutouts found in a lot of tales.

I enjoy being mislead and not being able to pick out the killer in detective fiction and James had me chasing my own tail a bit. I sure didn't guess who the killer was. I did figure out who was stalking Gina but that wasn't as difficult to figure out.

Another thing I like about the Sean Richardson books is the setting. It's really refreshing to read a detective story that doesn't take place in Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles. The desert setting adds a little something extra to the tale.

You remember when one of your friends in college was in a punk band that you were afraid to see live for fear of them sucking? If James Thane were a punk band, he'd be The Clash. 4 out of 5 stars.

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The Lady in the Lake

The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A rich man hires Phillip Marlowe to find his wife. The trail leads to a resort town and another dead woman. Where is Crystal Kingsley? And who killed Muriel Chess? And what did Chris Lavery or Dr. Almore have to do with it?

The Lady in the Lake is a tale of lies, double crosses, cheating woman, murder, and a shop-soiled Galahad named Phillip Marlowe caught in the middle of it. Chander and Marlowe set the standards for slick-talking detectives for generations to come and Marlowe is in fine form in this outing, following the serpentine twists of the plot as best he can. Chandler's similes are in fine form, as is Marlowe's banter.

Since Raymond Chandler is my favorite of the noir pioneers, I feel guilty for saying this but this thing is so convoluted I stopped caring about the plot about a third of the way in and just stuck around for the Scotch-smooth prose. Seriously, this has to be the most convoluted plot from the master of overly convoluted plots. I had an idea of the connection between the two women but it took forever for everything to come together. Marlowe couldn't be blamed for not cracking the case early on since it read like Raymond Chandler was making it up as he went in between weekend-long benders.

To sum it up, the prose is up to par but the plot is a meandering mess. It's barely a 3 and my least favorite Chandler book I've read so far.

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Reviewed by James L. Thane
Five out of five possible stars

This is the twelfth and final entry in Joseph Hansen's excellent series featuring insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter. Published over a period of twenty-one years, from Fadeout in 1970, to this book in 1991, the series was witty and very well-written, with cleverly-plotted stories and well-drawn characters. Set in southern California, the books also captured perfectly the geography and the social and economic currents of the place and time.

What really set these books apart was the fact that Hansen created in Dave Brandstetter the first openly gay P.I. to inhabit a series like this, and neither Hansen, not his protagonist ever made a big deal out of it. Dave's sexual orientation was made clear from the opening pages of the first book, and it was simply a fact of life, just like the sexual orientation of any other detective. Dave had a love life and was active sexually throughout the series, but it never seemed intrusive or in any way out of the ordinary. In fact, Dave's romantic attachements were much more believable than those of many of his heterosexual fictional contemporaries.

As the series opened, Dave was already a middle-aged man and by the first pages of this one, he is nearing seventy. Many of the friends who populated the series with him are gone now; the others are all retired. Dave himself is not well; he tires easily and aches all over. His long-time lover, Cecil, begs him to see a doctor, but Dave dismisses the idea and claims he hasn't the time.

The story opens when a friend calls Dave in a panic. A young boy has apparently witnessed a murder and was then kidnapped by the woman he saw standing over the body. The boy, who has clearly been abused, manages to escape from his captor, whose name is Rachel Klein, and is found wandering along a beach by Dave's friend. The murdered victim, Cricket Shales, was a musician who has just been released from prison after serving time on a drug charge. He and Klein, who is also an addict, were once an item and she apparently feared he was coming back for her.

The cops arrest Klein and are ready to declare the case closed. But Dave is not so sure that Klein is guilty and so continues his own investigation of the case, even though he has allegedly been retired himself for a couple of years. In the process, he will put his own life and health in jeopardy.

The story itself is a good one, with lots of twists and turns, but in this book, the mystery takes a back seat to the health problems that are obviously ailing Dave. Along with Cecil, readers have worried over Dave's physical decline, especially in the last couple of books, and it's clear where this one is headed. As one nears the end of the book, it becomes especially hard to turn the pages and you want to linger over every last word.

When we finally reach the end of the case, and of Dave's career, it's a sad and elegiac moment. But one closes the book with a deep appreciation of what was a ground-breaking and very special series. Hansen was as good as any other crime writer of his era and this is a series that readers will remember long after they have forgotten most others.

Like A Big Honkin' Russian Classic

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Game of Thrones is really good. You may not think so after reading the rest of this review, but yes, I enjoyed this book. I liken it to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in that it's a sweeping epic mostly focused on the movers and shakers while keeping the timeline linear by shifting the focus back and forth between characters and groups of characters, specifically families.

Also, it's a big honkin' huge book, just like those Russian classics. Honestly, A Game of Thrones could have been made into two or three books. George RR Martin has slowed down his publishing rate for this series and some think he's burning out. By breaking up these massive tomes into smaller books that could be released over time, there wouldn't be such a large and noticeable gap between books. On the other hand, if your book is meant to be a thousand pages long because that's how it naturally progresses and ends, the action remains intense, and the reader's interest can be maintained through out, then by god you should publish that thousand page book!

Let me state now, I'm not a big fan of the fantasy genre. It's reliance on cliches, the general poor quality of the writing, the immaturity sometimes seen in relating to characters of the opposite gender of the author, etc. Martin succeeds in many of those areas where so many others have failed. There were relatively few moments while I was reading when I felt like I knew ahead of time exactly where the scene would inevitably lead. On the whole, his writing is solid. His many female characters are fully rounded, not "full-breasted". Yes, there are heroes and there are villains, but there are plenty of shades-of-gray characters in between as well. People are forced into unpleasant choices that they'd rather not make as it goes against their morals or code of honor, but they do make that choice because it's necessary or because - even if it's seen as wrong by many - they just can't see a loved one suffer. I like that. I don't need to see Mr. White Knight Johnny-do-good making noble sacrifices, nor do I want the bad guy doing evil for the sole purpose of doing evil. Martin is very good about giving his characters their due motivation.

As for the writing itself, a gripe I have with fantasy epics is a reliance upon stock phrases. I understand repetition was a memory device used in the old oral tradition, but we write this stuff down now. There's no need to ape a dead art that even its purveyors wouldn't still use if they were around today. They'd get a computer, printer and a ream of paper and be happier than a pig in shit. Having said all that, I'm not even sure this form of repetition is even intended as a homage to the bards of yesteryear. It think this boils down to lazy writing. Now, before you get all upset let me say that I'm not calling George R.R. Martin a lazy writer. He has written many books with many pages. It is truly amazing the amount of output he's produced. But therein lies the problem. When you write a 900 page epic that people eat right up and then beg for more, you are put in the position of having to produce more as rapidly as possible. Coming up with fresh ways of describing actions, characters and scenes can be difficult, even over the course of one regular sized novel, so it's no surprise to see people "breaking their fast" every time there is a morning scene. It's very useful in that it tells the reader not only that it is morning, but also that the characters are eating. That's great! So then as the writer you shouldn't feel obliged to say anything else on the matter and we can keep the action moving on...but wait...oops, he's gone and described what the characters are eating for breakfast, for the dozenth time. A couple times is fine, but unless there's something special about the food that we need to know, a couple mentions for the sake of detail is fine. The other issue being that, because "breaking their fast" and "milk of the poppy" are unusual phrases, they stand out. Therefore repetition of them stands out even more, and if you continue to see phrases that stand out time and time again, they tend to stand out for the wrong reasons and become stand-out annoyances.

Another pet peeve of mine is the adverb. It's a way of quickly describing something without going into much depth, which is fine in some instances, but overuse leads to weak characterizations and the like. Adverb use is fine for journalism, where a reporter needs to describe say a multi-death house fire in the span of 150 words. There's no time for lengthy prose. But when you've got hundreds of pages to work with, there's time. Martin's not as egregious as some fantasy writers about this, but he does get a little adverb heavy now and then. There seemed to be these sections where clusters of them would appear like pack animals rumbling by, causing a momentary disturbance in my reading. It's not a big deal, but they do stick out like a soar thumb to me, especially when used one after another. Hell, there's at least one occasion, and maybe two even, when...suddenly something happened suddenly! Really? Come on, who's editing this stuff? Anyone?

When I was boy I would come home from school and mom would be there doing the ironing or whatever while watching the daytime soap opera General Hospital. This was during the heady days of the "Luke and Laura" saga, and I LOVED every minute of it. Their forbidden love affair dragged on forever, through all kinds of impossible odds. The tension was just exciting enough, with a plot on a level a 9 year old could follow, but more importantly, essentially the same thing happened in every episode so that the story dragged out into epic length. That really appealed to me. I think that's because children seek stability. Here was this fun story that I could come home to everyday and rely on it being there for me, giving me that little thrill I enjoyed so much and being the constant I so desired. That's what the soap opera did for me. To this day I love me a good ol' series. However, series or no, I'm okay with only reading this first book and stopping. I don't feel an overwhelming desire to read on. I'm older now and have things I want to do, other books I want to read. I'd love to follow these characters to the end and maybe some day I will, but good golly miss molly, there's a whole lotta readin' goin' on for what is essentially a soap opera!

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Down At The Old Bailey, But Not Down At The Mouth!

Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rumpole of the Bailey is former barrister (lawyer) John Mortimer's first crack at fictionalizing his former life. His hero, Horace Rumpole, toils down at London's Old Bailey defending morally tarnished persons, who usually didn't "do it"...at least not this time around.

This is a batch of humor to lighten the soul with a sprinkle of pathos for real world problems. Mortimer writes in a breezy, almost Wodehousian way, substituting the care-free, silly bachelor for a more curmudgeonly, sly near-retiree. But while Rumpole may be a bit grumpy with his colleagues and wife, and though he defends criminals, he is a thoroughly sympathetic character. Mortimer knows his boundaries and stays within them. He can also be relied upon to tell a satisfying tale competently.

I could've given this five stars, I enjoyed it that much. And there's hardly anything to complain about it. I didn't give a perfect score because it's a collection of light comedy, short stories and so for that reason alone it doesn't seem worthy of 5 stars. That's terribly unfair of me, I know, but it's how I feel right now. It's probably not how I've felt in the past, nor undoubtedly will it be how I feel in the future. It's a funny world, isn't it?

A Story Best Left Untold

A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York by Anjelica Huston
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

(This is an ARC that I won in a giveaway. Yes, I asked for this.)

I am so mad at Anjelica Huston. I was a sideline fan of hers all these years. With this book she killed that. I was a fan of her father's and she killed that too.

Well before Anjelica, I was a John Huston fan. As a kid, for me he was Gandalf, having done the voice for the Rankin Bass adaptations of Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Return of the King. I love that man's voice and his imposing figure inspired awe when I saw him in "Chinatown." But then his daughter took that away from me with her autobiography.

…her horrible, horrible autobiography.

To an extent, I knew she was Hollywood royalty, but I didn't realize that in her youth (this book covers from her birth to early adulthood) Anjelica Huston was the Paris Hilton of her day: a vapid, directionless princess.

A Story Lately Told is country estates, servants and nurse maids, "mummy!" and "daddy!" (and later "daddy doesn't love me!"), horseback riding, fox hunts, party frocks and taking tea with the O'Tooles and/or getting sloshy with countless other celebrities. So very little of significance happens that if it wasn't for the few outstanding films her father directed, this whole family could've ceased to exist and the real world would've carried on quite well without them.

Once Huston hit her teens, schooling essentially ended for her. Considering that she skipped out day after day, it's no wonder the writing herein is so bad, with its disjointed paragraphs where each sentence is its own disparate idea. Her dubious understanding of natural science has the reader scratching their head. (A quote or two here would be great, but apparently I'm not allowed to quote from this, it being an ARC, I guess.) To say the least, it needs editing, even more than it's already had, as noted by Huston in the acknowledgments.

It's not that this book is the worst thing ever written. It's not. Huston can string a few beautiful phrases together. In fact I liken this read to walking through an art gallery, one in which the pictures are gorgeous, but there ends their worth. It is filled with a tarnished Rockwell or two and an overwhelming number of Thomas Kinkades. Pretty, all too colorful, and completely void of a deeper meaning.

And apparently there's more to come! Another book is due out soon, which will delve into her acting career. I wish I'd held off and read that one, and never seen this. I hope for Huston's sake, the next book has more substance, that she found there is more to life than modeling and standing in front of cameras. Because there are just too many meaningless, ineffectual stories in A Story…. Edit some out, those many that start promising and go nowhere. Build up the anecdotes of the good ones. If it's not too late, shorten this book up to half its size and combine it with the one on her movie career. We all like a good story, but if you're going to demand everyone's attention, make sure its a good story.

Intuititing Elevators

The Intuitionist

Colson Whitehead

Reviewed by Carol

Recommended for: Someone who wants a gumbo of mystery, lit, pulp, and African-American experience.

★   ★   ★  1/2

 

I came to Colson Whitehead by way of zombies.

Colson Whitehead, writer of award-nominated books, including National Book Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and New York Times Notable Book of the Year; contributer to the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Harper’s; and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.

Yes, that Colson Whitehead. Zombies.

I’d like to pause for a moment and just admire the mind-twist for those that deride zombie books.
The writing in Zone One (my review) was astonishing enough that I resolved to seek out more of his work. The message was bleak enough that I wasn’t in a hurry about it. Though I picked up John Henry Days some time ago for a song, it was finding The Intuitionist that brought me back to him–I find a little mystery hard to resist. Except it wasn’t, not really. Allegory and all that. Post-modern literature something-something. Except better, because it’s not self-consciously ironic or a parody. It’s sincere.

On the surface, it’s a pulpy noir fiction, set in a roughly parallel world to ours, ugly racism warts and all, in an unnamed New York, during perhaps the 1940s. It’s about a woman who works as an elevator inspector, a member of the prominent and politically powerful Department of Elevator Inspectors. The elevator doctrine has undergone a schismatic shift in the past decade, after Mr. James Fulton developed the theory of Intuition, the discipline of inspecting an elevator by analyzing one’s experience of it. Lila Mae is the first colored woman in the department, only the second colored person in the local chapter, and a disciple of Intuitionism. When a brand new elevator crashes (thankfully, without passengers), it seems she and the Intuitionists are being set up to take the fall and enable an easy political win for the Empiricists. Lila, unsure how to defend herself, takes a role in solving the issue after the head of the Intuitionists approaches her with a tempting lure–designs for Fulton’s mythical black box seems to be in play but missing, a Holy Grail of elevator design that will revolutionize the city.




In one sense it works. The surface plot is interesting–there are, after all, secret societies, company cars, a muck-raking newspaperman, gangsters and potential lovers. The story holds, Lila Mae is sufficiently developed beyond allegory, the city is full of rich detail, the puzzle of the elevator guild interesting and the possible blueprint alluring. Weaving through it is Lila’s acknowledgement of the experience of being an African-American woman, her history, and her gradual awakening in the city. In another sense, it feels very constructed, very designed, meant to educate and explore, and not quite so much to feel.

The Intuitionist is Whitehead’s first published work. I was a little disappointed to not see the same level of prose that I loved in Zone One. Bleak as it was, the imagery in Zone was mesmerizing and intricate. In contrast, this is a book not necessarily of language, but of ideas. Elevators have, in essence, transformed the city, allowing it to reach new heights. A new elevator–the fabled black box–would do the same. Intuitionists are transforming the field, and people of color are transforming themselves. It’s fascinating and complex, and much like an elevator–gears, weights, counterweights, artistry, and while the purpose is clear, the mechanism of the parallels are not so obvious that the reader feels overpowered.


Unfortunately, it also, much like the elevator, misses the feel factor. I enjoyed it as a read, I was intellectually engaged, but it reminded me a bit of high school English class, without the note-passing (we didn’t have texting in those days). Perhaps it’s because Lila Mae is somewhat disenfranchised from herself–as she goes through her life one step removed, I found I remained somewhat removed as well. Still, it was interesting, and pleasantly complex. I don’t regret the time spent, and feel rather pleased about exercising those mental muscles. It definitely piques my interest in the rest of the Whitehead cannon.

Three and a half stars, rounding up because this author can write.

Rot

Michele Lee
Skullvines Press
Reviewed by: Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

So you’ve raised your loved ones from the dead, but had no idea how difficult it would be to care for them.

No problem! Silver Springs is a warm, peaceful facility equipped to handle all your zombie needs. Their friendly staff will ensure they have a safe environment with daily exercise and raw meat.

Rest easy knowing they’re in good hands… as they rot.

In Michele Lee’s Rot, you won’t find an apocalypse or Romero-style flesh-eaters. This is far more disturbing.

In a world where certain people can will others back from death, Silver Springs Specialty Care Community caters to the undead for those who aren’t quite ready to let go (zombie milk available by special arrangement at the home office).

Dean, retired from the military and looking for an easier life, runs security at this zombie herding farm, but he learns that dark injustice is not unique to war. There’s a rotten core to Silver Springs. Now, Dean and a quickly-decaying corpse named Patrick are on the hunt for a woman they both love and lost to a lucrative business that specializes in greed, zombies and never having to say goodbye.

My Review

Rot is definitely not your traditional zombie tale, full of mindless, hungry zombies and lots of gore. Dean is a former military man hired as a security guard by a facility that specializes in caring for those who are raised from the dead by family members who are unable to care for them, yet unwilling to let them go.

Amy and Patrick are newly raised zombies. Amy died from a stroke, her husband no longer willing to care for her, but unable to let her go. Patrick, a gay man, was killed in a car accident and kept alive by his parents who promise to give him a decent burial once he “repents”.

When Amy goes missing, Dean and Patrick set out to find her and in the process, uncover the dark side of the Silver Springs Specialty Care Community.

This is a wonderfully dark, thought-provoking, heart wrenching and imaginative story that explores the greed, corruption, and selfishness that leads to a callous disregard of human life and one man's strength and courage to do the right thing.

Also posted at Goodreads.