Zone One: A Novel

Written by:
Colson Whitehead
Narrated by:
Beresford Bennett

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
7
Narrator
5
Release Date
October 2011
Duration
9 hours 58 minutes
Summary
In this wry take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, a pandemic has devastated the planet. The plague has sorted humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead.

Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuild­ing civilization under orders from the provisional govern­ment based in Buffalo. Their top mission: the resettlement of Manhattan. Armed forces have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One—but pockets of plague-ridden squatters remain. While the army has eliminated the most dangerous of the infected, teams of civilian volunteers are tasked with clearing out a more innocuous variety—the “malfunctioning” stragglers, who exist in a catatonic state, transfixed by their former lives.

Mark Spitz is a member of one of the civilian teams work­ing in lower Manhattan. Alternating between flashbacks of Spitz’s desperate fight for survival during the worst of the outbreak and his present narrative, the novel unfolds over three surreal days, as it depicts the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, and the impossible job of coming to grips with the fallen world.

And then things start to go wrong.

Both spine chilling and playfully cerebral, Zone One bril­liantly subverts the genre’s conventions and deconstructs the zombie myth for the twenty-first century.
Reviews
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Anonymous

I’m trying to get through this right now. Excellent story idea that is so over written. It’s like this guy wanted to sound like a genius. It’s a zombie book man, I just want to be entertained, not try to detangle every single sentence.

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Rachael G.

Not your typical zombie/post apocalypse world. Well-defined moments and those that left you wanting to learn more. A good read.

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GMac

Disappointing and I didn’t even finish. I expected much more from a Pulitzer Prize winner. The narrative is long on details and short on plot. Maybe it was building up to a revelation but I couldn’t take any more, but I gave it a sincere attempt. The characters are rough sketches and I never connected with any of them enough to care what would happen.

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