Song of the Living Dead [Paperback]

Soren Narnia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2003

The zombies rose and walked, the country went mad, and then the zombies laid down again-all without committing a single act of violence. Song of the Living Dead is a satire and an elegy, a patchwork oral history of the strangest plague in world history. While scholars, politicians, and common citizens share their insights on this fictional madness, the restless dreamer Lionel tells his own story. Traveling randomly across the east with a group of close friends, he witnesses first-hand the nightmarish confusion that the living dead bring upon the land.It's a story of one man's despair over his country's inability to unite in crisis, a tale of sudden, random violence and illusions of America's greatness gone askew. When the zombies rise a second time and become anything but docile, the tale becomes even darker, as Lionel struggles to understand the design of a universe lost in the realm of B-horror movies-and more vivid real-life tragedies.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Soren Narnia is thirty-three years old and the author of several other works of both fiction and truth. At this moment he is investigating a spooky thump in an old attic in Adamant, Vermont, walking tremulously up the creaking stairs, and looking for another story to tell.

Product Details

• Paperback: 116 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (September 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 059528924X
• ISBN-13: 978-0595289240
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,815,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Stumbling, shuffling, moaning......., January 14, 2004

By 

L. Horace - See all my reviews

This review is from: Song of the Living Dead (Paperback)

It's always a kick when a book's title is slowly revealed to be more clever than you think, and this one delivers on that level in more than one way. It refers at first to a freakish acoustical trick emerging from the mouth of a zombie, then to a sad documentary being made by one of the minor characters, and finally to the universe's strange marriage of beauty and horror, which the narrator fights to come to terms with. The book itself often edges toward real depth, which is virtually unheard of in this genre, but in the end the author has really only dipped his toe in the water. The characters move from locale to locale, situation to situation, seeing and feeling things that are invariably compelling, while all along there is a sense that Narnia is not wholly committed to really taking the book to the places it has the potential to go. He's all about moments, not the sum of the whole. There are about a dozen images in the book of real power, not a bad ratio for a work only 115 pages long. It's all more of a pop cinematic experience than a literary one, however. The ending, while intellectually potent, has only a muted effect on the emotions because there simply hasn't been enough time to know and identify with the characters. They remain likeable cutouts, recognizable but distant. Kudos for a smart book that gives you more and more to muse upon as it goes along, combined with an impressive way with words. But there are few things more frustrating than a story that keeps dangling greatness in front of you only to add up to relatively little.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what you're expecting, October 17, 2003

By 

Sam Pollin (Cumberland, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Song of the Living Dead (Paperback)

I've read a lot of zombie novels, and this one's not bad, not great, sort of in-between, pretty literary, not much violence except for one good scene at the end. It's about more than zombies, and that's all I can say. If you're looking for gore or horror, this is not the book to get. It's all more of a metaphor.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A smart zombie story for once, October 18, 2003

By 

Bart C. Green (Hanover, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Song of the Living Dead (Paperback)

Except for a conclusion that might tick off some people, this is a consistently clever take on the living dead scenario. It's told mostly in interviews with people who survived two waves of zombie uprisings, one mostly harmless, the second one violent. But the only thing predictable about the story is its traditional use of a group of very different characters coming together to defend themselves. In this case, they're very peaceful people who are forced to reneg on their pacifism in order to survive. The book is very funny in some places, very sad in others. Gore is secondary to what the zombies inflict on the minds of the characters and on America overall, which reacts to the situation in crazy ways. The author's liberal views are always apparent (too apparent maybe) but the book is a lot of, dare I say it, fun. A strange word to use for such a bleak story, but it's true.