Zombie

Joyce Carol Oates (1995)

Zombie is a disturbing and sometimes graphic novel, not recommended for the squeamish reader. A difficult book for even this hard-core Stephen King fan to read, I had to put it down a number of times, once with the thought of abandoning it for good. But I was also curious to see how the author would handle the subject and resolve the dark story line. (In case you haven’t heard, the main character in this book is a psychotic, sexually deviant, serial killer who kidnaps victims, holds them hostage and tries to “save” them by performing amateur lobotomies on them.) Narrated from inside the mind of this very sick individual, the story is told using varying type styles, symbols and drawings that illuminate the deranged killer’s thought process.