After the catastrophic events of what survivors call Last Night, what’s left of humanity try to impose order on Zone One, formerly known as New York. Our protagonist Mark Spitz is quite a beautiful bumbler, smart or lucky enough to have stayed alive after most people have turned into flesh eating zombies: “[h]is aptitude lay in the well-executed muddle, never shining, never flunking but gathering himself for what it took to progress past life’s next random obstacle.” He has little hope for the future envisioned by the new power order but nevertheless he pitches in and does his bit, becoming deeply attached to those he works with despite his essentially pessimistic view of the chances of any of them surviving. The insights in the novel are equal parts hilarious and sobering: “you’re still the same person you were before the plague, you tell yourself, even though you’re running for dear life through the parking lot of some shitty mall, being chased by a gang of monsters. I have not been reduced.” This is such a clever and surprisingly beautiful novel: you don’t know whether to root for humanity or give in like Mark Spitz, but certainly you want him to survive. A real gem.
