Customer Reviews

Motor City Shambler

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Robert Johnson was out for a hike when a stranger ran up and bit a chunk out of his arm. It's a strange behavior, but Johnson patches himself up as best he can and heads for home--Detroit. When he wakes up, he sees the news--there's a weird infection out there, an infection that comes to be known as zombies.

In his new persona as Zombie Bob, Johnson discovers he's one of the few zombies who retain their reasoning abilities. Unlike most of the others, who shamble fairly aimlessly, seeking human flesh and blood to repair their fast-rotting bodies, Bob can think, can reason, can plan ahead, can even disguise himself with clean clothes and cologne. Still, as the National Guard locks down the city, and living humans discover the zombies' susceptibility to fire, things look bad for Bob.

Author Joshua Calkins-Treworgy spins a charming light tale of the living dead. Bob looks for love, writes memories he suspects will only be read by the race he sprung from but became his victims, and tries to keep both himself and his less intelligent fellow zombies alive--and fed. Very funny.

I'm not sure why post-apocalyptic zombie stories are so entertaining, but the truth is, I'm addicted to them. And since Treworgy's book, Motor City Shambler, takes place in my hometown, this story seemed exactly right for me.

The narrator of this tale is Bob the zombie, a recently converted undead who is one of the first victims of a zombie plague that is ravishing much of the U.S. Bob writes his diary (yes, he is a very literate zombie) as he shuffles his way from the burning wreckage that was once the Motor City to the safer, more northern regions of the state. As Bob makes his pilgrimage, he quickly realizes that humans can act inhumanely when threatened by a zombie attack.

Bob is a likable narrator, and his story is told with a lot humor. For example, he describes his zombie girlfriend as smelling like, "an old tackle box that hasn't been cleaned in three or four trips to the lake." There's also some genuine tension in the book as when a group of humans tie a zombie into a car and set him on fire just to watch him fry.

But while Treworgy has the makings of a good writer, his story generally plods along, well, like a zombie. The narrative is disjointed, both backtracking and skipping forward in ways that break the tension. Oftentimes, the book dwells on insignificant details while skipping over what could have been dynamic scenes. The sense of drama is missing. Yes, the reader understands that Bob needs to get out of the city in order to survive, but without a steady rising action or an interesting character arc, the book ultimately ends up flat.Blood Sisters