I loved this Amazon review (yes, occasionally I check my books on Amazon, mostly when updating my webpage or checking sales) so much I had to repost it <3
It’s easy to be revolted by zombies, easy to fear them and easy to use them as disposable targets to rack up the body count in untold movies and video games. Easy to see them as mindless, soulless monsters and infectious hazards.
It’s also easy to laugh at zombies, that sort of morbid humor whistling-past-the-graveyard thing, their clumsiness, their shambling and moaning. The line between humor and horror is an elastic one, and zombies seem to be the ones we like to laugh at the most.
It’s a little harder to pity them, though that pathos is often brought out at least for a scene or two … when the final headshot is an act of mercy, an act of love. Those are the hardest moments, the painful and uncomfortable ones. The moments that give us the twinge of shame for having laughed or been revolted.
Because, in those moments, the zombies are re-humanized, and we can no longer pretend.
In Rot, you don’t get a scene or two of those moments. You get pretty much an entire book of those moments. If you’re the sort of person who’s wracked by guilt over the prospect of complying with a Do Not Resuscitate, or putting an elderly or disabled relative in a nursing home, even sending a family pet to the pound – heck, if you feel bad about abandoning your old stuffed animals! – then Rot is liable to hit that nerve.
We hate death, we hate losing our loved ones. We pray, we bargain, we wish we could do anything to have them back. And, despite everything we should have long since learned from “The Monkey’s Paw” and “Pet Sematary” – sometimes, dead is bettah – we let ourselves forget or be fooled.
This is the world of Rot, a world where certain people discover they have the ability to raise the dead … and a lot of other people are glad to pay for the service. Glad, that is, until the inevitable home truths begin to sink in. Zombies are high-maintenance and special needs to the extreme.
You think it’s bad when you give in to your kid’s pleas for a puppy after seeing the latest Disney hit or a bunny for Easter or something, only to find out the hard way that you aren’t really prepared to take care of it, or that it’s far more of a commitment than you anticipated? Well, imagine that this isn’t your kid’s puppy or bunny … it’s your KID, or your kid’s other parent, or someone else close to you who’s died and been brought back.
What can you do? Especially after you’ve gone to all that initial trouble and expense, it might seem wrong just to have them laid back to rest. But you can’t keep them at home. What are your options?
How about Silver Springs, a special care community? Where your dearly not-so-departed will be tended by trained, discreet professionals? Seems reasonable, right? Pricey, but reasonable, a balm to the guilt, out of sight and out of mind.
After all, it’s not like any sort of neglect or abuse could go on in a place like that, right?
I’m tellin’ ya. As the meme says, RIGHT IN THE FEELS.
