ZOMBIE, ILLINOIS: SCOTT KENEMORE RETURNS WITH HIS BEST NOVEL YET.

No stranger to Day of the Woman, zombie expert, Scott Kenemore is at it again with his second zombie novel centered around a midwest outbreak.  Scott Kenemore is the author of the Zen of Zombie-series of humor/satire books, and the novel Zombie, Ohio.  A graduate of Kenyon College and Columbia University, Scott is a proud member of the Zombie Research Society and the Horror Writers Association.  When he's not writing,  Scott is a Chicago Drummer and is the drummer for the musical band The Blissters.  Scott has discussed zombies on the Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, Martha Stewart Living Radio, The Alan Colmes Show and other esteemed news outlets.  His books have been written about in the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Hartford Courant, Indianapolis Star, Cleveland Plain Dealer, USA TODAY, Rue Morgue Magazine, Fangoria, Gawker.com, BoingBoing.net, AOL News, and the New York Times “City Room” blog.  He's even such the zombie expert that he's been been asked to discuss zombies and horror-writing at conventions like Comic-Con International, Spooky Empire, and ZomBcon.

Zombie, Ohio was the first zombie novel that we had seen from him after his Zen of Zombie satirical book series, but Zombie, Illinois has taken his writing skills to an entirely new level.  The novel has three narrators-- a twenty-something Latina rock drummer in an all girl band, a thirty-something male political news reporter, and a sixty-something African American pastor. Zombie, Illinois follows these three characters as they interact with one another, fight zombies, and negotiate the difficulties of the first 24 hours of a zombie outbreak in Chicago, Chicagoland, and greater Illinois. Many of the themes and locales are drawn from Scott Kenemore's own experiences (being a drummer in Chicago bands, working in the media, and working for six years with community-improvement organizations in African American neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side).   

The most interesting thing about Kenemore's writing style is his ability to generate very different voices for each of his characters, while still maintaining his own style of writing.  Obviously the language between a girl in a band called "Strawberry Brite Vagina Dentata" is going to be far more vulgar than an African American pastor working in the slums of the South Side of Chicago.  Somehow, he manages to retain a sense of fluidity and the book flows seamlessly between the three different perspectives.  The characters are likable from very different corners of perspective, and everything feels very...real.  One of the easiest mistakes to make with a zombie novel is losing touch with reality, which is something Kenemore never does.  He has produced a zombie novel that is able to frighten, thrill, and entertain without ever becoming campy.  

Any Chicago native (or anyone who has ever visited Chicago) will be sure to enjoy all of the little homages that the book throws to us Windy City dwellers.  Kenemore has written a novel about zombies, yes, but the underlying exposition on the beating heart of Chicago is thrown right in our faces.  He has truly captured what it means to be a Chicagoan and what makes us different than any other city on the planet.  "West Coast, East Coast, how about NO COAST." He really did his homework with mentions of cities outside of Chicago, including a little nod to my overzealous religious city of Zion, Illinois just north of Chicago.  

The fact that Kenemore doesn't receive as much praise or notoriety as say, a certain zombie author with a very famous filmmaking daddy, is incredibly frustrating.  Kenemore has tapped into the human condition, underground issues in society, and of course, the zombie phenomena. The world in which is characters reside is one that is very, very convincing.  While reading Zombie, Illinois, it never once feels out of the ordinary and everything resembles how a zombie apocalypse would actually happen.  To put it simply, Zombie, Illinois is one of the most entertaining and realistic zombie outbreak novels in a very long time. 

You can purchase Zombie, Illinois on Amazon 

HERE 

or 

You can try to win one of the two copies I've got for giveaway by sending me an email 

at BRITTNAHJADE@GMAIL.COM with 

"I LOVE CHICAGO ZOMBIES" in the title

PENNING THE PAGES WITH ZOMBIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT KENEMORE

Let's get the fact that I'm a total Scott Kenemore fangirl out of the way.  Scott Kenemore is the author of the Zen of Zombie-series of humor/satire books, and the novel Zombie, Ohio.  He is a graduate of Kenyon College and Columbia University.  A member of the Zombie Research Society and the Horror Writers Association, Scott is a Chicago Drummer and is the drummer for the musical band The Blissters.  Scott has discussed zombies on the Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, Martha Stewart Living Radio, The Alan Colmes Show and other esteemed news outlets.  His books have been written about in the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Hartford Courant, Indianapolis Star, Cleveland Plain Dealer, USA TODAY, Rue Morgue Magazine, Fangoria, Gawker.com, BoingBoing.net, AOL News, and the New York Times “City Room” blog.  He's even such the zombie expert that he's been been asked to discuss zombies and horror-writing at conventions like Comic-Con International, Spooky Empire, and ZomBcon. For lack of a better word, he's perfection incarnate.  Now that the formalities are over, LET'S DIVE INTO THE INTERVIEW!

BJ-C: Your most recent book "Zombies vs. Nazis" comes out next month, I gotta ask...are you actually interested in the concept or is this just schtick?

SK: I'm actually interested in the concept. I get approached about doing many zombie-related writing projects that I eventually turn down because they just don't feel right. But when my publisher came to me with a very open ended request ("Could you do something for us with Nazis and zombies?") I instantly knew that, yes, this was a book that I could and should write. Also, I grew excited by the challenge of doing a book where there are NO GOOD GUYS. It's something you don't see a lot. The narrative structure of my book is taken in large part from "The Pardoner's Tale" by Chaucer because that's my favorite story that has no redeemable characters. (I've had a negative reaction from agents who sell film-rights for this very reason. They're all like: "I can't sell THIS to a movie studio. There's no good guy for the audience to cheer for. This is just a bunch of racists Nazis encountering horror and depravity and zombies." And I'm like: "Yeah, exactly.")

BJ-C: Okay, let's make the obvious comparison. What's your opinion of the film Dead Snow?

SK: I thought the Nazi zombies in Dead Snow were wonderful, but I wished they could have been used to tell a more coherent, nuanced story. I hope Dead Snow inspires future horror directors to make new, even better zombie Nazi movies. (I wrote a review of Dead Snow on my blog last year, if you want a more in-depth version of my thoughts.)


BJ-C: Of course the author would want a coherent, nuanced story.  You are a very gifted writer, but out of all of your books, which one was your favorite to write?

SK: Zombie, Ohio was my favorite. Satire and humor are fun, but I like novel writing the best. It's more difficult, but more satisfying in the end. I'd written four novels prior to Zombie, Ohio. Some of them had come very close (I think) to being published, but, in the end, never were. I remember once going smoking in a hookah bar in Manhattan with an editor from Random House who was interested in a novel I wrote back in 2002. I was thinking: "Random House can't take EVERY writer out hookah-barring. They totally must be interested in me!" But then, for one of a million reasons, it fell through. Getting a novel published is about tenacity. You've got to keep trying. I'm proud, also, that I stuck to my guns in terms of content. I never tried to write a novel that would fit a current trend-- I just wrote the kind of horror/mystery novels that I liked and would want to read myself.

BJ-C: The book itself is vastly different from your satire books.  How did you transition from writing your zomcom books into your more serious book Zombie, Ohio?

SK: I had always been writing novels all the time-- alongside the satire-- I just hadn't yet convinced a publisher to print one of them.


BJ-C: You recently had a kickstarter campaign for your next book, what can we expect from Zombie, Illinois?

SK: I don't want to give too much away. The novel has three narrators-- a twenty-something female rock drummer, a thirty-something male news reporter, and a sixty-something African American pastor. Zombie, Illinois follows these three characters as they interact with one another, fight zombies, and negotiate the difficulties of a zombie outbreak in Chicago, Chicagoland, and larger Illinois. Many of the themes and locales are drawn from my own experiences-- being a drummer in Chicago bands, working in the media, and working for six years with community-improvement organizations in African American neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side.

BJ-C: That's going to be incredible.  Speaking of incredible, how was it speaking at comic-con?


SK: Great fun! Our panel was a marvelous exchange of ideas (about zombies), and I got to catch up with many of my friends from the "horror/zombie circuit."

BJ-C: I can only imagine the amount of nerdgasms.  While I'm on the subject, what is your nerdiest obsession other than zombies?


SK: Hmm. Things my friends make fun of me for liking include Rush, Phil Collins/Genesis, and Sherlock Holmes.


BJ-C: Phil Collins?! Oh no. We can't be friends. We'd be perpetual enemies.  I hate Phil Collins with a fiery passion.  Rush, that we can share but not Phil Collins.  Sorry, I digress.  What do you want to see come from the modern zombie film?

SK: I would like to see zombies used for great storytelling!


BJ-C: I think we're still too new into the zombie psyche to figure out a way to do that just yet.  Do you think that zombies will ever get the disgusting facelift that the vampires have (aka-will there be a twilight style zombie)?

SK: Honestly, yes--I think at some point, unfortunately, some out-of-touch Hollywood producer will greenlight something like that. And it will fail utterly, and lose a bunch of people a bunch of money.

BJ-C: That's depressing, yet inevitable.  I agree with you on that one.  Maybe it's the Chicagoan side of us.  We're lucky that way.  So, I gotta know.  How has Chicago shaped your zombie obsession?

Chicago is a great, dynamic, exciting town. It's unique. It has guilds and trusts and racial-clusters like Ankh-Morpork. It also has a tradition of beloved writers who don't always get the national attention they deserve (Mike Royko, Studs Terkel, Roger Ebert, Timuel Black, just to name a few). What I want to do with Zombie, Illinois is to write a horror novel about Chicago and Illinois that people FROM Chicago and Illinois will actually like. Too many "important Chicago books" get named as being so by book critics in New York City, and not because actual readers in Chicago are like: "Yes, this guy/gal got it right!" I will have succeeded with Zombie, Illinois if local readers feel like I captured something real.

A ZOMBIE PANEL OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

For all of us who missed comic-con (raises hand in shame) we not only missed the plethora of cosplay brilliance, but some of the best panels and debates. Everyone knows that I'm a straight up Scott Kenemore fangirl, so I'll watch just about anything where he's talking. Unfortunately this is sort of overtaken by Max Brooks (who's a total windbag, as it seems) but this panel of Zombie Authors has brought some interesting arguments to the table. Thoughts?

Oh Scott Kenemore...you fox.

ZOMBIE, OHIO & LET ME DIE A WOMAN: TWO BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE

Homework? Bitch, Please.

Now that midterms have FINALLY taken a seat back in the life of BJ-C, I was able to sit back and do some recreational reading.  I'm a total bookworm, but I've forced myself to avoid the stacks of novels sent to me in place of some War Poetry and Kristin Linklater's books on "freeing the natural voice".  Don't get me wrong, I'm psyched to study Theatre and English...but there's an assload of reading required for both of these majors.  ANNNYWAY.  Two AMAZING authors, Scott Kenemore and Alan Kelly have sent me copies of their books Zombie, Ohio and Let Me Die A Woman.  Both of these books are horror essentials and tickle two very different parts of my personality.  It is for this reason that I've decided to review them together.

 Scott Kenemore is no stranger to Day of the Woman.  The man has four full length zombie books out already, and took a dive into the world of novella with his newest addition Zombie, Ohio.  This Chicago native has managed to weave a tapestry of horror, humor, and intellect.  This one is less of a "OMG ZOMBIES" book and more of a murder mystery, which adds an even more incredible twist to the traditional zombie novel.  The story focuses on Peter Mellor, a regular college professor who dies in a car accident without realizing he's actually dead. Peter then reanimates but has no idea he's a member of the walking dead and hopelessly attempts to readjust to society.  While the poor man attempts to put together his life, figure out who the hell killed him, and reconnect with his loved ones, zombies begin a reign of terror.  Kenemore does have quite the graphic detail for all the gorehounds out there, but his writing style is something I always enjoy.  It's written with much intelligence, but sprinkled with dark humor and the ever popular sarcasm.  Kenemore is a truly talented author and has painted us a grimly wonderful post-apocalyptic world to escape to.  

 AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Alan Kelly is a genius.  There, I said it.  If John Waters had a baby with a foul mouthed, quick witted, feminist, pulp fiction star...it would more than likely star in this Irish author's debut novel.  I'll be completely honest when I say that it's almost difficult to put into words just how awesome this book is.  This is the sort of novel that has to be experienced, rather than just reviewed.  The tale tells of Bunny Flask, with the help of her friend Kiffany, who has fought hard to champion women working in the horror genre in the magazine 'Blood Rag'. (Can you see why I'm so obsessed with this?)  Unfortunately, the magazine is bought out by the chauvinist greed mongler, Mick Jones.  When Alice Fiend is brought into the picture, Bunny's world seems to be over as she knows it.  After everything falls apart, Bunny decides to make her own future...with weaponry!  This book is gritty, filthy, violent, hilarious, and represents everything great about the pulp fiction novels of yesteryear.  It's nearly impossible to believe that this is a debut novel for how vivid the characters are written and how powerful the storyline is.  Alan Kelly may not have written a book that will work for every audience, but it exceeds with flying colors for those with even the slightest interest in pulp fiction.