‘Breathers’, zombies, altruism and necrophilia.
Posted by Ms Harker | Filed under Horror Reading
Reluctantly jumping on the Zombie bandwagon (as you all know I prefer my undead with fangs and a tidy set of glutes), I picked my self up a copy of ‘Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament‘ by S.G.Browne. ‘Breathers’ is one of a plethora of Zombie based fiction to hit the shelves in the past few months, other titles include ‘Patient Zero‘ (click for The Vault of Horror review), ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ and ‘World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War‘. So our much maligned manky friends are in the spotlight these days.
‘Breathers’ is told from the perspective of Andy, recently undead living in his parents basement, drinking his fathers expensive cellar of red wine and watching daytime television. As you see even though the zombie phenomena is growing on planet Earth, nobody really knows what to do with them. Any Zombie related disruption results in a trip to the local animal shelter/pound, as no one has figured out another way to detain the walking dead. Ergo they have no human rights, cannot work and are under the supervision of their human guardians. For Andy this is his parents. His mother tries to maintain the now decaying fabric of her family, however her husband would be happy to sell Andy off to the local science lab and take the cash to replace his ever diminishing wine collection.
Andy was killed in a car accident and laments the loss of his wife, his daughter survived the accident and has been sent to live with relatives and he reanimated without a voice (due to damage in the accident). Communicating by a chalkboard around his neck, the only social outlet he has is a government sanctioned support group ‘Undead Anonymous’. Run by undead ex-zombie counsellor Helen (gunshot victim), the group is an effort to help zombies come to terms with their newly undead status. Hilarious affirmations are rolled out at each group like ‘Hope is not a four letter word’, Andy also sees a therapist who provides him with no solace or empathy, due to his heavily botoxed face.
The group at Undead Anonymous form a tight bond throughout the book, despite their very different backgrounds and attitudes. Naomi a bitter ex-model whose husband killed her after a bad day at the golf course, chain smokes and butts them out in her empty eye socket. She fights incessantly with Carl the victim of a mugging who is equally as bitter, there is Jerry a young man who killed himself when he crashed his car after too many Jack Daniels shots and bongs. Then there is Rita, the object of Andy’s affection.
Rita, a suicide, who sits across from Andy in her pale splendour, applying red nail polish then lasciviously licking it off again… As zombies need to ingest a certain amount of formaldehyde to delay the decomposition process, which is mainly found in cosmetics and human hygiene products such as shampoo! Andy lusts after the waxen Rita and more freedom for his cadaverous comrades and embarks on a campaign to achieve his goals.
‘Breathers’ is a humourous romp cast through the eyes of an outsider, taking us on a journey of segregation, rebellion, homicide, friendship and a little necrophilia. Does it count as necrophilia if both parties are undead… Anyway this was a mirthful ride through the existence of the living dead, well worth a detour from my usual revenant reading rations.
Ms Harker
Tags: Horror, Horror Novels, Zombies
2 Responses to “‘Breathers’, zombies, altruism and necrophilia.”
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B-Sol Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 11:37 amI don’t want to read too much of this, because I’m in the middle of it right now, but damn is it good. And the movie is going to surely rule. Oh, and thanks for plugging my Patient Zero review
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Ms Harker Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 4:30 pmI don’t think there’s any spoilers, no, I just gave the outline… I’m keen to hear what you think once you’ve finished!
