Zone One

A Novel

By: Colson Whitehead

Narrated by: Beresford Bennett

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's 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.

©2011 Colson Whitehead (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"A satirist so playful that you often don't even feel his scalpel, Whitehead toys with the shards of contemporary culture with an infectious glee. Here he upends the tropes of the zombie story in the canyons of lower Manhattan. Horror has rarely been so unsettling, and never so grimly funny." ( The Daily Beast)

"Highbrow novelist Colson Whitehead plunges into the unstoppable zombie genre in this subtle meditation on loss and love in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan, which has become the city that never dies." ( USA Today)

"For-real literary - gory, lyrical, human, precise." ( GQ)

Great concept no follow through

I was confused and bored through the first 2 chapters so I just gave up. The author seems like he was more interested in writing poetry than a zombie apocalypse novel. If you're in the market for a flowery, romantically written zombie apocalypse then this is the one you want.

A Bit of a Headscratcher

I, unlike other people, don't think Colson Whitehead was "slumming it" in zombie lit, and there are a few things he added to the genre. However, having read the vastly superior World War Z (Max Brooks) and listened to the amazing audiobook as well, I couldn't help but draw a comparison in which unfortunately Z1 did not come out ahead.
Whitehead can be incredibly sparse and succinct with words and sentences that will really surprise and delight you. But when he isn't, get ready. The whole first preamble almost turned me off to the whole thing. At times, I struggled to follow which moments were the present and which were distant or recent flashbacks, an issue which seemed to plague (pun very intended) many readers/listeners.
All in all, it was fine. The performance was mostly great, with the voice actor doing several different male voices with their own cadence and pitch. However his take on the female voices was over the top and stereotypical. Just got high pitched and vapid sounding. It was a turnoff.
If you want slightly more literary flourish and love New York A LOT, choose this book. Otherwise I would strongly recommend you read WWZ instead. Both the content and the audiobook performances are much, much better.

Good writing, bad reading

Between the searching aloof reading and the constant mispronunciations the reading missed the mark.

Writing is good. Will look for others titles from this author.

Purple Prose and Bad Narrative Direction

The narration and writing style are both bad enough on their own, but together they make this audiobook unlistenable. I found the prose to be bloated and prolix, made all the worse by the bizarre tone of childlike wonder the narrator brings to the reading. Bailed out a little over halfway through.

Too boring and choppy to have good action and too amused by itself and banal to intrigue as post-apocalypse philosophy, for me this was a waste of my hard earned money.

Poor

Author spent half the time explaining his lead character's mediocrity. Shame the story the character inhabits couldn't rise even to that low bar. Typical genre story poorly executed. Refuses to trust the reader to pick up any of its message without a prolonged bludgeoning. Look elsewhere.

Pretty Good Overall

Overall the story line is pretty interesting and there are some creepy moments when I was listening. The only real issue I had was there are a few times when the author goes off on kind of a tangent of description or something and I can't really understand what it is contributing to the story. If anything, those few times kind of distracted me from the fact that the characters are trying to dodge zombies. Thankfully those moments are few and far between and I really enjoyed the book overall.

smarmy intellectual gives zombies a shot

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

we have the convergence of two sub-standard experiences: first, a bloated, overly verbose and self reflective text; second, a reading with too much stylization.

Coleson Whithead is a darling of the intellectual literati, and for good reason. He is a talented and intelligent author, and I have enjoyed some of his shorter works as well as hearing him in interview. As a long-time fan of the zombie / post-apocalyptic genre, this book immediately piqued my interest.

unfortunately it falls flat, tripping over its author's vocabulary and introspection and landing right on its face. A strong start get lost in a soupy miasma of reflections and memories of the protagonist which don't inspire any interest of excitement. Whitehead goes out of his way to make the protagonist, Mark, seem like an everyman; instead of making him relatable, Whitehead succeeds only in limiting Mark to gray tones. will Mark make it through the novel alive? who cares? he's so boring and unremarkable I can't imagine being bothered one way or the other.

on a technical level the book is hindered by an overuse of the author's extensive vocabulary; too many overwrought sentences bulging with pretentious synonyms for common words.regarding the reading: this performer reads like an aspiring actor, or an enthusiastic stage performer reciting someone else's poetry. every sentence is pregnant with meaning, and sounds like it should be accompanied by a soul-bearing stare into a camera. again: sometimes less is more.

Would you ever listen to anything by Colson Whitehead again?

Probably not. I am familiar with his other work, though this is the only novel of his that I have read. I find his writing to be exactly the kind of thing that makes intelligent people scoff and roll their eyes at The New Yorker Magazine; very intelligent, but far too self reflective and all style over substance.

How could the performance have been better?

again, less is more. I think this reading would have succeeded with a more flat and somber reading, given the subject matter. instead the narrator seems to relish the delivery of each line, and his enthusiasm is distracting and overwrought.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Zone One?

there are frequent, pointless forays into navel-gazing regarding the protagonist's past that don't come to much. these passages should either be given more weight or eliminated all together.

Any additional comments?

I can't help but wonder if I would have preferred this book if I had read it instead of listened to it. I don't know if that says anything about Coleson Whithead, but it speaks to the reader / performer for sure.

Fascinating and unconventional

The audio version is a great way to experience this novel. It's more mood than plot, and the performance enhances the tone of the novel, allowing it to envelop the listener.

The plot is difficult to follow at some points and doesn't move in a straight line, containing many long flashbacks and stream-of-consciousness musings by the narrator. It is NOT your traditional zombie novel.

I found myself getting lost in the expertly-crafted descriptions of a world in chaos. There are some funny moments that lighten the mood a bit, but the novel is definitely a dark one. The characters wouldn't necessarily be believable if you were to hear about them outside of the setting of the novel, but Whitehead makes them believable and explains their quirks well. The characterization made me really like the people in the story.

If you want a standard zombie story with a lot of action, this isn't it. Those who would like to take on a literary experience in an apocalyptic setting and who don't mind taking the scenic route from beginning to end will enjoy Zone One.

Couldn't finish the book

I'm so sorry, but I just could not finish this book. I got the book because the Arizona Republic designated it as the book of the month. It's just awful. I could care less about any of the characters, an the reader is just plain boring. I got through Book 1 (downloa 1) and I just couldn't waste any more time on the 2nd download. Save your money as this is just not a good book.

Detailed by agonizingly so

I only made it about 3 hours in before I had to stop listening to the narrator drone on about every agonizing detail about the world that I forgot about every character introduced in the book.except for Mark Spitz.and even he plays second fiddle to the world that he inhabits.