Handling The Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist is a spooky book. But spooky in the way that it's pretty much our normal, everyday world, except for this one supernatural turn. I recognize that a lot of horror (and also thriller) can be explained this way, but my point is that Lindqvist doesn't come at the novel from the perspective of writing a scary story. He introduces human emotion and watches what happens when the world is turned upside down. What does grief do to a person, especially in the face of the impossible?
When the city is faced with a heat wave and weird occurrences start bringing people's loved ones back to life...but are they the same people? David's wife is the first one to come back, and he always knew she was too good for him, so how is he supposed to carry on and raise their kid without her? Or how can a grandfather go on without his favorite grandson? Or an old woman whose husband died recently, and his recurrence makes her question everything about her faith? Slowly, the country figures out what to do with the risen dead, calling in the army to sequester the increasingly more violent problem, and people pack in to see their loved ones when everything goes terribly wrong. Again, Lindqvist manages to tap into the most human part of horror, and Handling The Undead will leave you with the slightest of tingles at the base of your scalp long after you've turned the last page.
No comments:
Post a Comment