Reviewing Zone One for Esquire, Tom Chiarella wrote that "Whitehead brilliantly reformulates an old-hat genre to ask the epidemic question of a teetering history-the question about the possibility of survival" and called the book "one of the best books of the year." While Chiarella's review establishes the high-water mark of praise heaped on the book, most critics were similarly impressed. Flashbacks pepper the narrative, explaining how Mark Spitz survived the apocalypse to date and got his nickname along the way. Over a three-day span, "Mark Spitz" and his fellow "sweepers"-other survivors of the apocalypse-patrol portions of New York City, eliminating zombies as part of a mission to make the city habitable once again. But events have stabilized, and the rebuilding process has begun. Plot summary Ī virus has laid waste to civilization, turning the infected into flesh-eating and mortally contagious zombies. Whitehead has stated that the novel was partly an attempt to return to his adolescent fascination with horror writer Stephen King and science fiction icon Isaac Asimov. Blending elements of genre fiction and literary fiction, the novel takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States ravaged by zombies. Zone One is a 2011 novel by American author Colson Whitehead.
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