Max Brooks Has a Gift

 I've told many people that World War Z is the scariest book I've ever read.  Sadly, most people associate it with the Brad Pitt zombie movie that came out a few years back.  Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty damn good walking dead flick (though I don't care for the hive-mind fast zombies) but it's not a good representation of Max Brooks' book.  It's not even close.

See, World War Z is an oral history. One of those books that is told from the point of view of a wide array of people that lived through the experience.  Drawing inspiration from the works of Studs Turkel, Max creates the Zombie war from beginning to end, and employs characters and incidences that feel flat out real, because the events are generated not from a third person narrative, but from the mouths of those who survived the horrors of the book's events.  He makes you believe that something as ridiculous as the reanimated dead eating people could happen, not just in the horrific detail of the attacks, but by illustrating the reactions of the common folk as they stumble about trying to survive, and the response of those in authority, not just here, but around the globe as they flail to solve the problem and limit the damage, while not going to war with one another. 

As a layer of realism, that most authors cannot top, Brooks published the quirky book "The Zombie Survival Guide" a couple of years before Z, that I picked up off the shelf of a bookstore's humor section.  I remember reading it, and not laughing.  It felt like a guidebook for survival for the general public, should a zombie outbreak somehow actually occur. 

Well, guess what? That's literally what it is, because in World War Z, the tome is referred to as something that was distributed to the masses, much like America did in previous wars, to help them acclimate to a situation that was hard to imagine, but needed dealing with directly and efficiently. 

Brooks knows how to inhabit a character, richly, fully, and by finding subtleties and humor that most writers cannot. He did it again in his new book Devolution, which also follows a concept many would find ridiculous to a comical level and creates a riveting narrative through the journal pages of the main protagonist, Kate.  The pages describe in growing suspense how she and her neighbors, living in an eco-paradise, are forced to become survivalists in the wake of a Mt. Rainier eruption as migrating Sasquatches decide to attack their community.

The Journal, combined with actual scientific information about Sasquatch history and commentary from a character's brother and a fictional forestry expert, are pages that will not be put down.  It feels real and that's what gives Devolution its terror as you genuinely fall in love with Kate and her overmatched technology-dependent nature dwellers as they face something they never would think imaginable. 

In both Brooks' books, you feel the way things break down in regards to their handling by the authorities, and the folks involved, is exactly how it would shake loose in real life.  It's a layer of unease that makes the storytelling all the more compelling.  You think to yourself:  This shit could happen, man. And this is what they would do.  If you don't believe me, check out the words of the first head of homeland security, Tom Ridge, as he says: "I wish we could elevate the national dialogue on public safety to a level of tone and focus that Max Brooks has demonstrated for all of us."

That's pretty incredible, in terms of the praise and who it came from.  Because it's not hard to find the warnings Brooks provides in both books.  We need to get our shit together, and the shit is even less together now in the era of an administration that has foxes in charge of hen houses, and a hefty chunk of the public whose main goal for their leaders is to "own the libs", spout racist rhetoric and not a lot else.

The ability to create Brooks' both logistically knowledgeable and painfully human narrative style is what makes him one of the more gifted writers of his generation.  I cannot wait for what he does next, I just hope it won't be as long a wait as it was between Z and Devolution.