Why Zombies? Why Now?
“The grief-stricken survivor at the end of the world is not someone I identify with, unless I go to Whole Foods or a party or something.” That’s Colson Whitehead in a recent Harper’s interview, talking about his forthcoming novel, Zone One , the most recent manifestation of our current Zombiegeist. Another day, another zombie. Obviously, human fascination with monsters and the undead in particular is an enormous topic, with a rich history, and I’m not pretending to engage that in any thorough way, here. I just have an intuition about our current zombiphilia. If it’s bullshit, or so obvious that it’s not worth saying, my bad. Basically, I think zombies today spark a horrible feeling of correspondence in many of us. We see mindless creatures of pure appetite, staggering through the apocalypse, and we recognize ourselves. We can’t turn away. And I think that this is a slightly different motivation than zombie audiences have had in recent history—at least, it