Zone One: A Novel

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.