Survivor Song
by Paul Tremblay
A book review
This
is not a fairy tale. Certainly it is not one that has been sanitized,
homogenized, or Disneyfied, bloodless in every possible sense of the word,
beasts and human monsters defanged and claws clipped, the children safe and the
children saved, the hard truths harvested from hard lives if not lost then
obscured, and purposefully so.
This
is not a fairy tale. This is a song.
Paul
Tremblay is one of the leading contemporary writers of horror fiction. In Survivor
Song he gives us his take on zombie stories. Except that this novel is not
about zombies, but about an aggressive, rabies-like virus which is spreading in
Massachusetts, turning humans and animals alike into aggressive beasts, before
shutting their bodies down.
The
novel starts with an adrenaline rush. Heavily-pregnant Natalie and her husband Paul
are attacked by an infected neighbour.
Paul dies in the scuffle. Natalie is bitten, but manages to narrowly
escape her assailant. She calls her paediatrician-friend Dr Ramola “Rams”
Sherman for help. The novel is a nail-biting
“real time” account of the two women’s mission to get Natalie to hospital, in
an attempt to save both mother and baby.
The narrative
grips you in the very first pages, and never lets up. Rams, ever the scientist,
keeps reminding Natalie (and others) that this is not “a zombie outbreak”. Yet
Tremblay borrow many tropes from zombie fiction – the continuous sense of danger,
the morphing of usually safe spaces into apocalyptic war-zones and, most
poignantly of all, the pain of seeing loved ones turning into deadly monsters.
The
continuous action does not leave much opportunity for profound character
development, but in a few deft brushstrokes, we are given enough information
about the two female protagonists to make us readers care for them. Tremblay does not shy away from visceral, in-your-face
horror (there are a couple of gut-wrenching scenes). Yet, what struck me in Survivor
Song is its sense of humanity, exemplified by the deep friendship between
Natalie and Ramola, and the maternal love of Natalie towards her unborn child. This is horror with a heart.
The
novel comes across as a very timely one and it’s hard to believe that it was
written prior to Covid-19’s global takeover. I am not suggesting that the
rabies-like outbreak is anything like Covid-19.
It is more horrific yet, ironically, less insidious. Unlike the novel coronavirus, its deadly
effects are so obvious and immediately apparent that no one in their right mind
would brush it off as “just a new sort of flu”.
Despite the differences, there are some uncanny parallels between the
world in Survivor Song and what the world has gone through and is still
experiencing – the “lockdown”, the constant fear of infection, the sense of
uncertainty about the future, the stupidity of some leaders who should know
better, the unbridled egoism of certain individuals (a misguided “survival
instinct”?), and, on a more positive note, the flowering of humanity and
generosity in moments and places where one would least expect them.
Survivor
Song is not a fairy tale. Indeed, the apocalyptic scenario it
portrays may be closer to reality than we are willing to admit.
Paperback, 336 pages
Expected publication: July 7th 2020 by Titan Books
No comments:
Post a Comment