The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten (Zombie Uprising) [Paperback]

Harrison Geillor (Author), Scott Altman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2010 | Series: Zombie Uprising

The town of Lake Woebegotton, MN is a small town, filled with ordinary (yet above average) people, leading ordinary lives. Ordinary, that is, until the dead start coming back to life, with the intent to feast upon the living! Now this small town of above average citizens must overcome their petty rivalries and hidden secrets in order to survive an onslaught of the dead.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The humor in this parody lies in the simple truth that even a zombie bear with a hatchet in its head won't faze a Minnesotan. After dead people and animals begin coming back to life, Lutheran pastor Daniel Inkfist and Catholic priest Father Edsel band together to form the Interfaith Anti-Zombification League. Power-mad mayoral candidate Eileen Munson tries to work the situation to her own advantage while dominatrix Julie Olafson dreams of creating a zombie-free green zone around Lake Woebegotten. Mr. Levitt, secretly a serial killer, easily dispatches the undead as well as the living, but then he decides to dig up the cemeteries (once the thaw hits) and release a zombie army. As in Garrison Keillor's writing, dry humor leads to moments of real feeling and pathos. A Minnesotan might say that it's pretty good if you like that kind of thing.
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About the Author

Harrison Geillor was born in a small three-room farm house in central MN, sometime in the middle of the twentieth century. He attended one of Minnesota's prestigious institutions of higher learning, were he obtained a degree in English. Like English majors everywhere, he wanted on to work in a variety of jobs that had nothing to do with books or literature. At some point in his life he decided that the best way to appreciate Minnesota was to appreciate it from afar. He splits his time between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, only returning to Minnesota for smelt fishing, and the occasional family reunion.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books (September 14, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597801968
• ISBN-13: 978-1597801966
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forget the candy--this was my Halloween treat!, November 3, 2010

By 

Susan Tunis (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten (Zombie Uprising) (Paperback)

I don't remember when I've laughed as loud and as long as I did over the cover copy of The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor. The concept is genius, and the fake blurbs are hysterical. At this point, I should probably admit that I'm not a fan of Prairie Home Companion, zombies, or literary mash-ups, making this book an unlikely choice for me. What can I say? I judged this book by its cover.

And that turned out to be a not-entirely-accurate way to judge the interior contents. As I mentioned, the cover copy was laugh-out-loud funny and just a bit stupid. Based on that first impression, I have to say that the book was all-around better-written, better-plotted, and a lot less stupid than I expected. Also, the humor was different. It was funny and satirical, but less "in your face" than I expected.

The plot is easy to summarize. In fact, one character does just that, "The situation is this. The dead have come back to life, and they're dangerous. Just like in some kind of horror movie or video game. When the corpses rise, there's nothing human left in them, as far as I can tell, just a terrible hunger." Lake Woebegotten does not exist in a pop-culture vacuum. Another character has taken a course in "The Zombie as Metaphor." He kept up a running dialog throughout along the lines of, "It seems to me we're dealing with the classic George Romero Night of the Living Dead sort of zombies, just straight-up reanimated corpses hungry for human flesh, probably brought to life by some form of cosmic radiation. You heard about the meteor shower last night, right? Who knows what came flying down from space?"

Oddly enough, this book reminded me a lot of Stephen King's recent doorstop, Under the Dome. Both stories are basically a look at an entire small town full of people coping with a dangerous and otherworldly stressor. The town is made up of individuals with secrets, hidden agendas, and various strengths and weaknesses. It's a perfect setting for drama and (as even Mr. King knows) comedy. As in, "Julie's eyes had a strange light to them, and Otto wondered about her past, who she was, really, where she'd gone when she left town, why she'd come back...." Or, "Eileen hadn't exactly developed a taste for blood, like some kind of tiger that eats one little Javanese boy and can't abide the taste of anything but sweet, sweet manflesh after that, but she'd discovered she could kill both deliberately and in the heat of the moment if the job needed doing."

The novel is structured in three parts, and here's a great example of the pseudonymous author taking a more sophisticated and interesting approach to telling the story. The middle section is entitled, "Twenty-some Odd Scenes from the Winter, in No Particular Order, Certainly Not Chronological." And that, of course, is exactly what it is. But by presenting these short chapters jumbled and out of order, he does a great job of creating narrative tension. It was this section that bumped the book up to 5 stars for me.

The one area that may disappoint is if you're looking for some real scares. I'm widely-acknowledged to be huge scaredy-cat, but not even I had a moment's fright over these zombies. And that's the way I like it. But I laughed a lot, and got a fast, fun story with a perfect ending. My determination to stay far, far away from Minnesota is firmly reinforced.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Zombie / Minnesota humor, and a great story as well, September 4, 2010

By 

L. J. Werbick "Bombrat" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten (Zombie Uprising) (Paperback)

I picked this book up on a whim and it has been one of the best impulse buys I have made in years.

I have read quite a few zombie satire books lately (Pride & Predj. & Zombies, etc...) and some of them have been good reads, but this is the first one that has felt like it could stand alone as a novel without the 'poking fun at a famous book'. It is very much like a Garrison Keillor novel...great characters in small-town Minnesota dealing with every day problems, only today's problems include zombies.

The middle of the book shifted to an entertaining cluster of 1-4 page snap-shots of winter events told in a pulp-fictiony out-of-order style that was unique and still brought together the story by the end of that section...just in time for spring.

There were quite a few laugh out loud moments during the read and others I wanted to share so much I would read them out to whoever was around to listen, usually resulting in chuckles as well, though one time the guy in the elevator seemed a little freaked out.

Great book overall, highly recommended to anyone looking for a zombie book, or a funny book with some gore, or just a great read.

4.0 out of 5 stars A decent read of zombie love and humor., November 26, 2011

By 

K. Schade "krizzby" (Highland Lakes, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten (Zombie Uprising) (Paperback)

Harrison Geillor's novel Zombies of Lake Woebegotten is definitely a good read. I am not very familiar with the quirkiness of the Mid-West, however I felt that Geillor's parody was very well done. The chapters are short and it is an easy read. Honestly completely do-able in a single night if you want to hunker down for a few hours. The characters are believable and their situation is as genuine as a zombie outbreak can be.

One down side is sometimes Geillor doesn't know what a "period" is. Some sentences ramble on and on, make for many one sentence paragraphs. Sometimes, as part of his need to give you an in depth back story Geillor will go into way too much unimportant detail that honestly can slow down the story a little. Admittedly I found myself skipping over a few sentences when it would go on and on about someone's musings or unimportant back story. I am by no means a literary critic or scholar however it does pull the story down sometimes.

Overall, wonderful book. Definitely enjoyable. I recommend it.