Breathers: A Zombie's Lament [Paperback]

S. G. Browne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2009

For fans of Max Brooks’s The Zombie Survival Guide and zombie aficionados everywhere, a hilarious debut novel about life (and love) after death.

Meet Andy Warner, a recently deceased everyman and newly minted zombie. Resented by his parents, abandoned by his friends, and reviled by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new existence. But all that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls in Rita, an impossibly sexy recent suicide with a taste for the formaldehyde in cosmetic products, and Jerry, a twenty-one-year-old car-crash victim with an exposed brain and a penchant for Renaissance pornography. When the group meets a rogue zombie who teaches them the joys of human flesh, things start to get messy, and Andy embarks on a journey of self-discovery that will take him from his casket to the SPCA to a media-driven class-action lawsuit on behalf of the rights of zombies everywhere.

Darkly funny, surprisingly touching, and gory enough to satisfy even the most discerning reader, Breathers is a romantic zombie comedy (rom-zom-com, for short) that will leave you laughing, squirming, and clamoring for more.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Browne's black comedy debut brilliantly reinvents zombie culture for the 21st century. Andy Warner reanimates after the car accident that kills his wife, but is too mangled from his injuries to talk. He lives in his parents' wine cellar, occasionally attending a zombie support group and struggling to rejoin a society that offers the undead no rights, bans them from working and doesn't even punish those who destroy them. When Andy and his fellow zombies—notably Rita, a sexy suicide victim with a lipstick fetish, and Jerry, a Playboy-obsessed stoner—learn why they're so driven to consume human flesh, the repercussions are both tragic and hilarious. Browne neatly mixes humor and extreme violence with a surprisingly tender love story, some witty social satire and an extremely strong narrative voice. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Andy’s life is a mess. A newly risen zombie, he’s forced to live in his parents’ basement, attend Undead Anonymous meetings just to get out of the house, and endure abuse of all kinds from the living. To make matters worse, he can’t even talk, though that’s because his mouth was sewn shut prior to being embalmed. Things begin to look up when Andy meets Rita, a gorgeous zombie who slashed her own wrists and throat; nebbish, vegetarian Tom, whose arm was stolen by a pack of drunken frat boys; and Ray, an undead renegade who introduces the gang to the wonders of eating “breathers.” Some die-hard horror aficionados may find this take on zombies too full of shtick (e.g., the running joke that falls flat by its second appearance), but Browne confidently balances a love story with ample amounts of gore and gags that should win over fans of George Romero (Night of the Living Dead et seq.) and fans of Shaun of the Dead, too. A welcome deviation in zombie lit. --Carlos Orellana

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Product Details

• Paperback: 310 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Original edition (March 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767930614
• ISBN-13: 978-0767930611
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (119 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

S.G. Browne is the author of BREATHERS (Broadway, March 2009), a dark comedy about life after undeath told from the perspective of a zombie. His second novel, FATED (NAL, November 2010) is a dark, irreverent comedy about fate, destiny, and the consequences of getting involved in the lives of humans.

Scott was born in Arizona and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, spending most of his formative years in Fremont, California, as well as a short stint on the island of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, two-thousand miles southwest of Hawaii. From 1984 to 1989 he attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he majored in business organization and management and eventually realized that he wanted to be a writer.

After college, Scott moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a driver and an assistant producer doing post-production work on television spots and theatrical trailers for the Disney Studios. In 1992, he moved to Santa Cruz, California, where he lived for fourteen years writing novels and short stories and working as an office manager. In 2006 he completed his fourth novel, BREATHERS, which would become his first published novel in March 2009.

Scott's writing has been influenced by Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Moore, Kurt Vonnegut, and the films of Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson, among others.

In addition to writing, Scott enjoys biking, golfing, tai chi, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. He currently lives and writes in San Francisco.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zom-Rom-Com Anyone?, March 23, 2009

By 

Jennifer Wardrip (Bloomington, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Breathers: A Zombie's Lament (Paperback)

BREATHERS was an impulse Amazon buy, recommended when I purchased a separate zombie anthology. I don't usually give in to impulse buys (I have too many must-haves on my reading list as it is), but I'm so glad I decided to give into this one!

This book has it all - the blood and gore of typical zombie fare, but also romance (who wouldn't love a twenty-something hottie, even with the stitches at her wrists and throat, who happens to eat lipstick like it was going out of style), humor (I'm sorry, but breather disguised as venison is pure genius), murder (the opening scene is a husband-wife body part freezer bonanza), and an undead support group (yes, they even have field trips).

It's a quick read, and it is just so, so good. Andy, the main character, simply wants his life back, even if he is a member of the undead. As a member of society who now has absolutley no rights whatsoever, it's a lot more difficult than it sounds.

But if you've never had to drink VO5 shampoo (and sometimes conditioner) to get your formaldahyde fix, or had your arm ripped out of its socket only to be beaten over the head with it, or been shot in the face by a Social Security Administration guard, or been traumatized by frat boys in a cemetery, then you probably wouldn't understand what I'm talking about.

Seriously, just go buy it.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "There's a lot of prejudice against the undead.", March 14, 2009

By 

mellion108 (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breathers: A Zombie's Lament (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Andy Warner is a 30-something who lives in his parents' basement, drinking their wine and not contributing to society. This isn't so unusual except for the fact that Andy is a decomposing, smelly, zombie who reanimated following a fatal car wreck that killed him and his wife. He spends most of his time watching his skin slough off, listening to his father complain about the smell and hassle of housing a zombie son, shuffling his way back and forth between sessions with an overly Botoxed therapist and his Undead Anonymous (UA) support group, and chugging as much formaldehyde-laden products as he can to slow down his decomp. He develops a heavy crush on Rita, a fellow UA attendee, but how do you charm an undead suicide when your voicebox is crushed? On top of all that, Andy and his undead friends can't even take a walk without Breathers throwing insults and food items at them or drunken fraternity pledges ripping off their body parts. In Andy's world, the undead have no rights and can be abused by any of the living at any time.

It's hard out here for a zombie.

Then Andy and his pals meet Ray, a self-sufficient zombie who hunts for his own food and lives as far away as possible from the Breathers. They all bond over booze and good food, and Andy begins to see a possibility of a better unlife, one with civil rights, a job, a social security number, and possibly Rita. He stages some protests, gets pelted with a variety of fast foods, and has to be bailed out of the SPCA by his sputtering father on more than one occasion.

But he's making progress in his quest to secure equal rights for the undead and love for himself.

Browne delivers a funny little zombie novel with a more light-hearted approach than the standard undead fare. This is much like many of the down-on-their-luck stories telling the tales of society's castoffs. I thought the story was good, and it kept me reading long into the night. I really liked Jerry, the brain-exposed, porn-loving zombie, and my mind kept picturing him as a younger Jeff Anderson. I thought the ending took a turn not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book, but that's a minor complaint, and I would happily pick up the sequel once it hits the shelves.

All in all, this is an entertaining novel, and although some might try to read in deeper cultural and societal meanings in the satire, I think it's just one of those books that you read for fun.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Amusing, quick read, May 12, 2009

By 

Kalera Stratton (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breathers: A Zombie's Lament (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Breathers starts with a fairly amusing premise that capitalizes on the current zombie craze, and delivers pretty much what it seems like it will... a bit of entertaining popcorn. There is poignancy in the main character's story of losing his wife and finding himself resurrected, and a bit of tragedy and heroism at the end, but for the most part the book is an easy, unchallenging read filled with zombie quips and a recurring "If you're not a zombie, you probably wouldn't understand" joke, which honestly got kind of irritating after the 15th interation or so.

Still, it's an amusing, light read, and a pleasant diversion. It would be good airplane reading.