Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Review: Zombie

Zombie Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love serial killer stories. Love them. With crazy, passionate love.

This was a strange book for me, probably because it wasn't a thriller. What it seemed to be was a flat-narrative, just this weird monotone. I understand what the author was trying to do I think. I used to be fascinated by Antisocial Personality Disorder and that's one of the characteristics, this flat-affect.

But it was weirdly disappointing to me. Earlier this year I read the graphic novel My Friend Dahmer and I loved it. One of the things that had impressed me about Dahmer in general was his attempt to numb out his urges in high school by getting shit-faced drunk. It was moving somehow. Depressing in the fact that those necrophiliac urges had been there almost since infancy and seemed to leave no room for the hope he could ever have a normal life. But it was also heart-warming in a way; he fought those urges, lost in the end, but he put up a fight. So few of the serial killers out there even try to fight.

I think I carried this preconception into reading this book and that's why I found the flat remorselessness not to my liking. I was hoping for a bit more struggle in the story but it ended up being a completely different thing.

Still, the straightforward lack of emotion was chilling. It is certainly a very accurate portrayal of a sociopath, or at least what I think a sociopath is.

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