If horror author Robin Z Becker’s sentient zombie Professor Jack Barnes is to be believed, none of us are monsters. We might have cannibalistic urges; our intestines might have burst through the decayed flesh of our undead tummies, we might –quite calculatedly, I hasten to add- form a small collective of like-minded zombie minions with the sole purpose of flaying a few unfortunate strangers. But the message at the worm-riddled heart of this memoir is clear. We are all damaged in one way or another and really only trying to make our way in the big bad world, even if we do have to eat a few people along the way.
Robin Becker grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey and received her BA in English from The University of Texas and her MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University. BRAINS: A Zombie Memoir is her first novel and explores the viewpoint from the other side of the zombie epidemic. A gore-splattered, humorous, touching story where Barnes and his zombie posse embark on a gruelling cross-country gore quest to plead his case in front of his maker, Howard Stein, the man behind the zombie pandemic.
Professor Jack Barnes is charming, acerbic, witty, erudite and rapidly decomposing. When did you decide to write a memoir about a sentient zombie?
I first got the idea in 2004--the year Shaun of the Dead and the Dawn of the Dead remake came out. And then Land of the Dead followed in 2005 and that clinched it. I didn't start working on Brains until early 2006 though, as I was finishing up another project and I'm terrible at writing two things at once.
You’re well versed in Zombie lore with very subtle references to everything from Mary Shelley to Fulci to Romero. Would I be correct in saying BRAINS could be read as a revisionist retelling of Frankenstein?
Yes! I'm thrilled you mentioned that. In fact, the early drafts were even more clearly modelled after Frankenstein, but I took some of the references out so it wouldn't be too heavy-handed. Obviously the scientist who created the zombie virus is called Stein and there's a paragraph lifted out of Frankenstein too, when Jack sees himself in the mirror. I loved Shelley's idea that Frankenstein's creature is not inherently evil, but is made so by society. I thought I could do something similar with zombies--or at least play with the nature/nurture idea.
You gave a lecture on “The Ontology of Zombies” which crystallized your “research and ideas” and became the memoir. Was it your intention to always write a memoir or was a novel initially planned?
It was always a "memoir," but I put memoir in quotes because it's really a novel. I had already started the book when I gave that lecture, so it was a hybrid event. I discussed zombies for most of it--the myths, the social commentary in the best movies, the voodoo origins--then gave a short reading from the in-progress book. The gore made one student nauseous and he had to leave. I loved that.
In the canon of zombie film/literature/games what are some of your favourites and why?
The original Romero trilogy--Night, Dawn, and Day, although out of those Dawn is my favorite. The social commentary hits you over the head in a good way (consumerism is bad!) and Tom Savini did a great job with the colors--even though his work is at its most beautiful glistening in Day of the Dead. For more recent movies, I enjoyed the eating sounds in Zombie Honeymoon which is a 2004 zom-rom-com. It's a cute movie, but it was the audio that hooked me. And I really liked the 2001 Japanese movie Stacy wherein teenage girls become flesh-eating zombies. It said a lot about the power of adolescent sexuality--and it was darn bloody too.
As for zombie lit, I have a lot of catching up to do. When I was writing Brains, I avoided contemporary zombie books (except for the Zombie Survival Guide) and tried to stick to the classics for influence--Frankenstein, Dracula, Poe, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and believe it or not Edward Albee's great play The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? which did what I tried to do with Brains. Take an absurd topic (in Albee's case, a man falls in love with a goat) and make it serious and funny at the same time. I just started Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and love it so far.
I love the post-modern role-reversal – Instead of a bunch of preening often stupid Americans trying to dodge the rampaging horde – you’ve created your own family of zombies-cum-human practice targets as they make their way across America. Gradually meeting/making new members of their family – how did you come up with the characters? – Each one serves a necessary function and is glaringly alive, even though they’re, err, dead.
The main character, Jack Barnes, came first. He's a professor--and so am I! I've known a lot of guys like Jack, so that wasn't too hard. The others just popped up in the course of writing. I wasn't originally planning for him to meet others like him and I can't pinpoint the exact moment when they developed. I can never remember what happens when I'm writing, except I know I stare out the window a lot.
The title BRAINS is a homage to Dan O’ Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead – I was half expecting Linnea Quigley to show up and offer Professor Barnes a full-frontal. Are there any zombies you feel a particular affection towards in the subgenre?
That would've been a great scene. Why didn't I think of it? But no, I can't think of any Return zombies even though I totally stole BRAAIINS from the series. In fact, those movies all blur into one big movie, except for Rave to the Grave, which was the last one I saw.
There seem to be a heck of a lot of zombie survival stories doing the rounds right now. A writer friend of mine described the resurrection of this type of novel as a “safety net” – would you agree?
If by "safety net" your friend means that the books will make a nice cushy landing when you jump out of the window to escape a horde of the undead, then I agree.
Will you continue to write about zombies in an innovative, intelligent and quirky way, or try you hand at something new?
Thanks for calling Brains innovative, intelligent and quirky! I'm currently working on another book that's not a zombie novel. That's not to say I'm through, however. Zombies have a way of, you know, not staying dead.
How will you survive the zombie apocalypse when it does arrive?
I intend to give in, give up and submit. I cannot wait to become a zombie and eat everyone I know.
Brains is out now from Harper Collins and you can find Robin at www.robinzbecker.com
