"Survivor Song" by Paul Tremblay: Pandemic or zombie apocalypse?

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