Bookforum talks with Colson Whitehead
The main character of Colson Whitehead's latest novel, Zone One, is a mediocre young man who has been assigned to a cleanup detail in lower Manhattan, where he goes building to building, ensuring that each and every room is clear of the undead. Yes, Zone One, is a zombie book, but not like any that you’ve ever read. Literate and bleak, it draws from genre fiction to create something new—a brainy and action-action-driven zombie novel for our times.
Colson Whitehead is not a difficult writer in the way that a Thomas Pynchon is. His syntax is standard, and his sentences make sense on first inspection. Nonetheless, beginning with his brilliant first book, The Intuitionist, which followed the travails of an elevator repairwoman, Whitehead has consistently invoked complex alternative realities, infusing his settings with a subtle, Buñuel-like surrealism.
The main character of his latest novel, Zone One, is named Mark Spitz, a mediocre young man who has always pulled a B at best. In the book, Spitz is assigned to a cleanup detail in lower