Colson Whitehead: Laureate of the zombies
The author Colson Whitehead has written novels about dueling elevator inspectors (The Intuitionist), an American folk hero who perished in a competition with a machine (John Henry Days), a nomenclature consultant (Apex Hides the Hurt), a prep school kid coming of age in the mid-‘80s (Sag Harbor), and a clean-up crew after the zombie apocalypse (Zone One). He’s written a book-length ode to New York City, an epic report on the World Series of Poker, and a memoir of growing up on horror movies. A few weeks ago he was at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali to talk about his work.
Though it is lunchtime and conditions are perfect for a nap, the hall is full of people clutching copies of his books. Whitehead is a tall African-American man in his 40s, with dreadlocks. According to his official bio he was born and lives in Manhattan, received a MacArthur “genius” grant, and worked for the Village Voice. His manner — halting, seeming to grope for the right words — suggests he would rather not be talking about himself, but he obviously knows how to get the crowd going. The moderator introduces him and asks him to read from his latest novel, Zone One. He reads the first line (“He always wanted to live in New York.”) then goes off on a riff about the terrors of the writing process.
“This is my second autobiographical novel in a row,” Whitehead says of his zombie apocalypse novel. Every time he starts a new novel he is filled with optimism; inevitably he remembers that “Writing is the shittiest job in the world. It’s agony. If you remember how horrible it is to write a book, you would never do it again. Like childbirth, I imagine.”
He starts again: “He always wanted to live in New York.” Then muses on what a strange thing it is to write a book. Zone One is the first book he wrote without showing anyone a single word till it was finished — he was not unlike his protagonist Mark Spitz, all alone in the wasteland. The writing of a novel is fraught with weird anxieties, he says. Usually he shows someone the first third of whatever he’s working on to get a reality check. His previous novel, Sag Harbor, was full of pop culture references — he sent the draft to his editor along with YouTube videos of Grandmaster Flash and ads for New Coke.
Zone One he showed his wife, who said she preferred the protagonist of his first novel, The Intuitionist. “You know the character is basically me, right?” he asked her. “You understand we’re married, right?”
“That’s what makes it so awkward,” she said.
The audience laughs appreciatively. “Zombies have always had an erotic hold on my consciousness,” the author continues. He recalls how he and his brother were allowed to watch R-rated movies at an early age — he saw Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange at age 10 with his parents. “Mom, what happened to that woman?” he asked during a particularly disturbing scene.
“It’s a comment on society,” she replied.
He says he had anxiety dreams involving zombies for the last 30 years. The idea for Zone One came to him one weekend three years ago, when he had friends visiting his rented country house. It’s a house with thin walls, he tells the audience, so the guests understand it is a no-sex house. He could hear his friends laughing in the living room, and he wanted them to leave.
Then he had a dream in which he wanted to go to the living room, but he couldn’t because he wasn’t sure they’d cleared out the zombies yet.
Zone One is about a man in a cleaning crew in downtown Manhattan after a zombie plague has wiped out much of the world’s population. Their job is to clear out any undead stragglers who have escaped the military operations. These stragglers are malfunctioning zombies — they return to the place that resonates with them emotionally. The apocalypse is over; the reconstruction is supposedly in full swing.
“The malfunctioning zombies are a way to talk about memory and desire,” the author says. What survives the zombie apocalypse? Bureaucracy and corporate sponsorships. In the novel, the dead people are more alive than the live people. Mark Spitz had worked as a social media guy for a corporation, a dead-end job that required him to fake friendships online in order to promote products.
We don’t know what the protagonist’s real name is — his nickname is in recognition of his anti-Olympian qualities. The only event he might get a medal in is mediocrity — it’s what keeps him alive. The brave, smart people got themselves killed trying to save the world, and the stupid ones got themselves eaten, leaving the mediocrities. Zone One is a critique on society, capitalism, and human interaction. Whitehead acknowledges the inspiration of Omega Man, Escape from New York, Stephen King, and the George Romero zombie movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s — the ones with the slow, relentless creatures coming to eat your brains.
Whitehead says he stopped having zombie dreams after writing the book. Now when he does readings and signings, people tell him, “I read the book and I keep having zombie dreams.”
“Better you than me,” he replies. The audience laughs at all his lines — here is a writer who is as engaging as his novels. Later, having resolved to read all his books, I Googled Colson Whitehead. He is just as amusing on Twitter, where he has 125,000 followers. Bloggers report on talks he has given. Apparently he does this shtick where he “reads” from his novel, gets as far as the first line, then riffs about the writing process, his childhood, monster movies and so on. Okay, it wasn’t extemporaneous, but it was still fun.
Someone asks him whether his daughter has read his books. His daughter is eight, he says, and she’s started asking about them. When she’s old enough he’s going to show her his favorite horror movies. “Only five more years before Alien!” he declares. “Strong female protagonist!”
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