(BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION) Zone One by Colson Whitehead | Zombie Book Club Ep 141

Fifteen years after its release, Zone One by Colson Whitehead hits differently. We dig into the novel's fractured, nonlinear structure; where corporate-funded sweeper crews reclaim a zombie-plagued Manhattan, and unpack why Whitehead uses the apocalypse not as an ending, but as a mirror. From skels and stragglers to Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, we explore how the book blurs the line between the living and the already dehumanized, and what it means that most of our book club didn't even finish it.

We talk about the racist hidden meaning buried in Mark Spitz's nickname, the novel's unflinching critique of capitalism and "post-racial" mythmaking published during Obama's first term, and why the scariest thing in the book isn't zombies; it's everyone rushing to rebuild the exact world that made people disposable in the first place. If catastrophe forces a reset, shouldn't we be building toward something better?

Colson Whitehead

• Official site: colsonwhitehead.com

Zone One — relevant links

• Interview Magazine interview (source used in episode): interviewmagazine.com/culture/colson-whitehead-zone-one
• Zone One on Goodreads: goodreads.com
• GradeSaver study guide: gradesaver.com/zone-one

Transcript

Welcome And Work Hyperfocus

SPEAKER_04 0:20

Welcome to Zoom Book Club, the only book club where the book is only explained by several academic essays and YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

You know, I feel like the intro uh belongs to you since you did read those essays and watch those YouTube videos. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Then I'm gonna do this part too. I'm Dan. And when I'm not working on my extent doctoral thesis, what's an extent doctoral thesis?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

It means there's only one copy.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Oh, about what this book is actually about. Oops, I think I just deleted it. I'm writing a book where the world falls apart due to systemic incompetence, corporate greed, cronyism, and willful ignorance. Then a zombie apocalypse happens.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Yeah, it's like the worst order of things to happen. Yeah. Why don't you do my intro? And I'm Leah, and I am blank. That's actually what our notes say every episode. Yeah, it's the we fill in the blanks. It's Friday night, and I worked too much this week, and it's my fault. Hyper focus can be a curse. If it wasn't for Dan and Ziggy, I would probably have worked every night until I fell asleep. Also, you'd be very hungry. It's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

I would have subsisted on crackers and coffee. Wow. So thank you for keeping me alive and actually getting me to leave my desk. Still too late every night, but eventually I was like, I will look up and be like, wow, I meant to stop like five hours ago. Whoops. Oopsie doodle. Yeah. Uh, which I guess, folks, means that I like my job, but maybe a little too much. Because the hyperfocus is just like locked, I just get locked into a thing, and I feel some urgency about it in my brain, and I can't fucking stop until my brain finally releases me. And even then it's painful. Like I am considering working this weekend, not because I have to. Because you love it so much. It's not, it's like a compulsion. It's a compulsion. I'm not sure that it's like because I feel like I'm like it's my favorite thing to do, but it I think probably because it's early days and my brain is processing so much stuff. And when I try and sleep, I can't sleep because my brain is processing all the new stuff. And so I think part of it is like a compulsion that like if I just do it, then maybe that will stop. But actually that's not true.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

So that's what's going on. But that's not what's important today. Today, tonight, because it's Friday night, on spring equinox. Fuck yeah. Finally spring.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Thank God. Can we turn our clocks back or that uh no?

SPEAKER_04 2:37

We sprung forward. It's too late.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah, but we do it again though, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:40

Not until the fall. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

But it's nice. We saw a fox twice this week in our backyard, big and bushy and beautiful.

Dan Quits His Job

SPEAKER_02 2:49

I quit my job.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

And you might be thinking from this intro, it's a casual dead episode. We're just gonna talk about shit. Yeah, Dan, you quit your job today on the spring equinox.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah, officially.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Do you know that also Mercury retrograde just ended? Or when Mercury went to direct today?

SPEAKER_02 3:03

I didn't, yeah. I just I just did it today. I didn't, you know, I didn't have any of that planned.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Following the astrological alignments, it was also me. I think it was a new moon in Pisces last night. Wow. Yeah. All signs pointing to new times. And yes, I'm getting woo-woo here. But no, this is not a casual dead. But it might feel like one because it's eight o'clock at night on a Friday, and it's so late because um we just haven't had time to record because I don't know. I've been working.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, it's literally the last minute. I have to edit this tomorrow and then upload it for Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Yeah, we had some scheduling conflicts, so we thought there'd be anyways, it's just where we are.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I thought we were a lot further ahead than we actually were.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

So we're recording this.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

We'll be fine. And it's like we have nothing. No.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

And then Dan, you kept being like, Well, can't we just record this for next week and do something else? And I'm like, no, because we promised the people an episode on March 22nd, two days from now. That's what we get for making promises. Yeah, well, you know, you gotta live up to your commitments.

Why We Pick Zone One

SPEAKER_04 4:03

We're talking today about our first book club read of the year, Zone One. Yeah. By Colson Whitehead. It's a book. We read it, we talked about it with people. So many people, yeah. We had a book club discussion, our first live one with some of our zombie besties. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We'll get into that in a little bit. We release episodes every Sunday, so subhuman, a lower order of being in the in than than the human.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

And I tried to add so many more words to that. This is why you usually read that part.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Yeah, I have subhuman there because the entire invention of the idea of race was about categorizing some people as being subhuman.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

And this book is about race in many, many ways. So we're gonna

Five Stars And Reviews Matter

SPEAKER_04 4:49

get into it. But in the meantime, before we get into the hard stuff, you can do a really easy thing for us right now. Did you know that out of every like 10 to 20 people who listen, like maybe one of you hits the five stars and takes a minute to write a review? It's very few people who actually do it. We just went to my favorite restaurant this week, Black Magic Mexican, other than the Heartland Diner, which you all know we love. Uh, and they only had 18 reviews on Google. That's not enough. Well, every time we're there, we see lots of other people there. And it's like people aren't doing it.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

More than 18 people every day go there.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Yeah. And so I thought about that and I was like, you know what? This is this is why I'm gonna ask for more reviews. Because I know there's people out here that have been like, oh, I'll do that later. Do us a favor. It's later now. We don't ask for any money. We love y'all. Just show us some love with a five stars. And if you're on Apple Podcasts, tell us we're great. Tell me I should stop hyperfocusing on work and return to hyper-focusing on the book club because I miss y'all. I've just been unable to redirect my attention. Yeah. Uh Dan, what do you remember about 2011?

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Oh. I was really poor. Um, I was living in upstate New York, living in a really shitty apartment, driving a really shitty car. Um, I started 2011 working at a cheese factory. I worked at the Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese Factory. Uh and um, and that was a temp job, and the temp ran out, and they did not hire me full time, which is what everybody was hoping for. There were so many temp people there, and they're like, I really hope they'll hire me on full time because I got nothing else going on. And I was like, ah shit, me too. Um, but also I didn't really want to work there, it was really hard.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

Well, I'm sorry your life was hard, but politically things were better. Yeah. We had President Obama, we had stability. We had um the Affordable Care Act that for the first time in my uh or no, we didn't have it yet, but we were gonna have it. We're getting there. It was coming there. Uh, and this book was published in 2011. Yeah. So it's the 15-year anniversary, which is why I wanted to talk about it. Also because it was recommended to us by our zombie's at Naila King, who I then later learned also had not read it. Really? So was a big fan of Colson Whitehead and knew that there were zombies. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

As long as uh Naila's a fan of Coulson Whitehead. Yeah, that makes sense. I I I just imagine like sometimes like Naila will just drop a book at her feet and just be like, it's great, guys. And then she just runs away. It's like a book grenade.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Yeah, no. I mean, I was just asking her, I was like, look, we like we want to we want to explicitly discuss more books from authors who are not white dudes. And Colson Whitehead is a black dude.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

And he's also a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, a bestseller in the New York Times for a lot of books, including this book being a bestseller. So I think it was a very good recommendation.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Also, he won the MacArthur Genius Grant.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

Yeah, like very cool guy.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

Okay. I I mean, I don't know him personally, but he seems great.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

And um there were a uh there was an op-ed a couple of years before this book came out that people have made a connection to in terms of the content of this book where uh he was making fun of this idea that the US has entered a quote post-racial era. And so a lot of this book is sort of playing with that concept of like, what does it mean to supposedly be post-a crisis or post something and are we actually?

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah. I think and I that's what I love the zombie apocalypse for is that like you can you can play with the idea and apply it to something else, like zombies. Um, you know, if it the the story itself wasn't explicitly like this is post-racial. Um the story was this is post-zombie and obviously there's still zombies.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Yeah. That's true. Post zombies and there's still fucking zombies.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah. Um we're in the post-apocalypse, but we still got apocalypse.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

We've got m plenty to go around.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

So much. We've got po at the very least post-apocalyptic stress disorder, which uh P A S D is a big part of this we're gonna get into. Oh my god, I didn't think of that.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah, he he does say it. Um when he spells it out, he's like the there's like a saying that's like you gotta let go of your past.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

Oh my god. That's funny. Yeah.

Plot Setup And Sweepers

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Um but if you're actually wanting to know what the plot of this book is, is there are cleanup crews reclaiming Man there are cleanup crews reclaiming Manhattan after the worst of the outbreak. Of course they're prioritizing Manhattan because this book is also a critique of capitalism. And uh it's basically uh Mark Spitz, the main character, and his crew are going around, they're called sweepers, they're employed by corporations to go and clear buildings and neighborhoods of zombies um and of things that the corporations can resell.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

So this is not the government, although they sort of feel like they're almost like a military unit. They are like almost like private soldiers, but they're called sweepers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

That wasn't clear to me until like halfway through the book. Um, I thought that they were like government soldiers, uh uh the new government of uh the the American Phoenix. Um, but he do he does reveal that he's not actually a government soldier.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

Yeah, yeah. And it's over the course of three days, this story. Was it only three days? Yes, but there's a lot of flashbacks.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

So it doesn't feel like that because it's technically three days, and then and then Mark Spitz's character will like go in these reveries at his uncle's apartment or that time he met somebody when they it was out in the like worst of the apocalypse moments, stuff like that. So it and then also his dreams. So there's a lot of like, hey, what's actually happening? I'm confused.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Temporally, it's a little bit harder hard to follow the story. Because you just kind of don't know where when you are.

Nonlinear Trauma And Reading Strain

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Yeah. It's interesting because you, as somebody with PTSD, you said this book was particularly hard for you.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Yeah. So um, you know, I I was I was getting pretty frustrated with this book because like I could not keep track of when and where and who was even there or what they were doing. Um so I like I took to the internet and I'm just like, why? Why? Why? And one of the explanations that somebody gave was that um because one of the themes was talking about post-apocalyptic stress disorder past, um he wanted to write it in a way that captured that disjointed, nonlinear way of uh traumatized brain and how it works. And I I think he nailed it. The problem is that I have that. So like I'm getting double duty.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

So I have a hard enough time just stay like if you read this book and you and you have that confusion of that like disjointed, you know, not knowing when and where you are, like I deal with that. I deal with that on a daily basis. Sometimes I I wake up and I don't know when. Sometimes like I recognize the room, but I can't remember the state. Uh, it comes back to me in a couple of seconds, but you know, some there's there's a few moments where I'm just like, what is this place?

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Is this part of the temporal issue? Like literally about which episode we're recording when and how in the last 48 hours that we've been discussing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Because you keep telling me you're like, that's not what you said, and I'm like, no, that's that's there's been a there's been a lot of discussion and those the a lot of a lot of ideas and thoughts thrown around, and I mashed them all together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

Yeah, you're not seeing the conclusion all the time very clearly. I'm like Mark, I've communicated. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

I'm like Mark Spitz, and you know, I'm over here trying to clear the house, and you know, you're like, yeah, you know, we should probably do an episode about waffles. And I'm like, I remember a time when I had waffles. I was in the sixth grade.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Waho! Waffle house.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

And then I just go back to the sixth grade and I remember the syrup, and I'm like pouring syrup on waffles, and my mom's there, but she's fighting with my dad. And then I come back, I'm like, episode about what?

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Oh my god, that is literally how that book is, or this book is, and also you have ADHD. So I feel like you combine those things together and it it is hard.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Uh fun fact, fun facts about Coles and Whitehead, and another part of why this story came to be is that I listened to an interview with him, and he talked about how it was inspired in a weekend where he had a dream. And what was happening was that he had a bunch of house guests, and he was actually very he was like, they're all really great people before I tell you the story. Like, these are all good people. However, I was in a bad mood. I wasn't doing great. They were sleeping over. I woke up the next morning, they were still there in my house eating breakfast, and I just could not like handle humans. And so he says, like, I went back to bed. I was like, fuck it, I don't have to entertain these people. They can feed themselves, do whatever. They're already doing it. He went back to bed and he fell asleep and he had a dream where his guests were zombies and they were chasing him around the apartment trying to eat him. And that was the seed of this book.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, it's funny how that happens.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

I, you know, seeing uh reading like interviews with Colson Whitehead, like I think that he sounds like a genuinely interesting person.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

And a cool guy with like a lot of really interesting ideas. And um, and I don't know if I would have felt that way just by reading this book. Like it's it took going outside of this book to appreciate this book.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

Yes. Yeah. Can I read something that I wrote to Alice in like a tyrant tirade about how I feel about this book? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

When when did you write this?

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Very recently. This week. Because this is you gotta give this book credit. It is divisive in many ways for the folks that we've talked to who have read it, but also it means we're talking about it a lot.

Literary Vs Genre Snobbery

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

Uh so I just said Alice, like everybody knows who Alice is. Alice B. Sullivan. You should go pre-order their book right now. They have the uh Tomorrow Never Came, which is the second book in their aftermath series. It's coming out the end of March. You can go order it right now. And we're gonna have an episode with her later. That's my little plug for Alice. Yay! Uh so she shared a thread post where someone says, someone says, slow pacing, but I liked it. Humanity barely lived through zombie apocalypse and attempts to rebuild, but survivors have too much PATSD. There's also a mystery of stragglers or 1% of zombies just stopped moving and became statues in random poses. And then somebody responds and says, This is a fantastic book. Not many authors really bridge higher literature in the sort of pulpy horror genres, which like just sets me off in so many ways. So this is what I wrote. Well, Dan wrote, sorry, here Dan says, this isn't a a Discord group that we have together. Uh, higher literature. Like when I'm on my way to the library, when I remember I ate three grams of mushrooms an hour ago. And then I got really existential about it. And I said, it very much feels like the kind of abstract art that people who are not deep in the artistic world and art history are like, anyone can paint a yellow square, which is true, but also misses the yellow square as art for art nerds. Like art nerds being the intended audience. Yeah. People with a lineage and an understanding that they're they're inherently bringing to what they're reading. I said, I feel like this book is for literary nerds who want to be nerdy all day about prose and experimental writing or talk about the literary lineage that Colson White has an extension of. Um, including, I think that there was some inspiration from Beloved by uh Tony Morrison, because there's some similar things happening there. Just briefly, it's not immediately clear if you are um especially a white person that the main characters are black. Um, it's not described constantly, and so people like sort of self-insert and just assume the default of whiteness, which is a problem. Yeah. Maybe on purpose. And secondly, it's very non-lineary. Yeah. Very non-lineary. It's a non-lineary literary It's a non-lineary literary apocalypse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Say that.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

My lyrics are bottomless. Uh and so they said, if you just want a good time, that is an easy read. This is not the book.

unknown 17:24

No.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

This book is a hard read with a limited audience. AKA, it's like asking a hardcore meat lover to eat at a raw vegan restaurant where nothing tastes or looks familiar. One is not better than the other. It's a matter of familiarity and test taste. P.S. I hated almost every book I was assigned that was called a literary classic. I am the hardcore meat lover in this example. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

I I I agree that um that not many people can bridge the like literary with pulpy horror. Like, I think that's an accurate statement. But also, like, whenever you look up like a review or you see a blurb about this somewhere on a website, or even on like, I think on the book cover it has a few where it's just like if you if you ever have to to to steeps stoop so low as to read a zombie book, this one's the one for you. Like it was clearly never ever intended for the zombie apocalypse readers.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

See, you say that, but I want to read this quote. Oh, doing it again. I want to read this quote from Whitehead in an interview. The the interviewer says, Once upon a time, you won the MacArthur Genius Award. Zombies are characteristically unliterary. What caused you to focus your talents on the flesh-eating undead? Whitehead says, Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. So it's a really good example of like this this uh idea of what his writing is being imposed upon him.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

And that there's a snobbishness that I think he's responding to where he was just like, he's like, fuck off with that shit.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Yeah, and I I think that's what I love about Colson Whitehead is that you know, he like somebody came at him, like you could have taken that comment so many different ways. Like, I I kind of feel offended for him, where it's like basically is saying, Yeah, you you you won a genius grant once, but then you wrote a dumbass zombie book.

SPEAKER_04 19:19

Yeah, what's going on there?

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Yeah, are you even a genius?

SPEAKER_04 19:22

And the the quotes that are on the bestseller, like the cover of the bestseller of the novel, are things like this. It's a book you want to read rather than one you should read, while still providing the chilling, fleshy pleasures of zombies who lurch pursue hunger. One of the best books of the year. And there's more. A zombie story with brains. Whitehead is a certifiably hip writer who can spin gore with macab into macabre poetry, the Washington Post. And like that inherently is talking shit about zombie books. Yeah. Just saying, but also I think it's brains.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I think it's accurate that he spins the macabre into into poetry. That's true. It's like if I like the story itself, I had a hard time enjoying. But the writing is excellent. Like the right the you k you want to keep reading the book because the writing is amazing. And you're just like, what's the next line? I don't I don't know if I really know what even happens in this book, but I do know that there were lines that were amazing.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Yeah. His gore description, yeah, top-notch. Like really beautifully written in a way that is disgusting, uniquely disgusting in the way he writes. But back to my gripe about the snobbishness of some reviewers. Another person says, if you're going to break down and read a zombie novel, make it this one.

unknown 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

The Wall Street Journal.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yeah, if you have to stoop so low. If you have to rub shoulders with the lowly zombie apocalypse fans. But yeah, that like going back to Colson Whitehead, the fact that like he's like, Yeah, I d you know, I don't I don't care if this is academic or not. I don't I don't care if this is literary, I don't care what you think. I just wrote it. I wrote it, and all of those things that you're saying, that's your problem.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Like that made me instantly like him because like I didn't really know what his you know who he was going into this book. And it wasn't until like reading things like that where I'm like, oh, I I think I think we could be friends.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

Yeah. He's a really beautiful like he he is a beautiful writer, and it's not an easy book to read. Like those two things are true. Um it doesn't it doesn't meet expectations of what most people imagine as a zombie book.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

Uh there is gore, there is zombies, there is trauma, but because of how like back and forth it is, and like you're never really sure where you are in time and place, it's very hard to follow.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah. It's like trying to read momento or something.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

You mean moment oh it is memento, isn't it? Not I thought it was memento. It's memento? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

What are you saying? Is Memento the wait, I don't want to spoil the The movie. The movie that plays backwards.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

And the whole time you're like, what's happening? He's on the phone. Now he's putting tattoos on himself.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

Uh, I think Memento is relatively intelligible, though. Like it it compels you

Book Club DNF Reality Check

SPEAKER_04 22:14

to keep reading. You want to know what's happening. And I think the problem with this book, in full disclosure, we had our very first zombie book club live, unrecorded, uh, you know, informal zombie book club discussion, and only one person finished the book. And I think we need to just pour one out right now. Please insert sound effect of something pouring. Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

It was an applause. Okay. I gave applause.

SPEAKER_04 22:39

To Ollie. Ollie Eats Brainz. Started reading this book in January when we initially assigned it and kept asking me and Dan, hey, have you started it? Hey, are you reading it yet? I'm really struggling with this book. I don't know what it's about. And we just we just left Ollie to suffer alone, wondering if like they just couldn't understand this book or if it was good or not. And I just want to say, I'm sorry, Ollie.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Ollie was the canary in the coal mine. And Ollie was just flapping their wings, struggling, choking, and eventually passed out in that cave.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

And then we came in and we were like, Ollie, what are you doing sleeping on the job?

SPEAKER_04 23:21

And then we started reading it. And uh, and then we also saw other people reading it in the book club and then talking about it on our Patreon, which is a free trion. I always need to remind people. It's free. It's free. It's a community. If you want to give us some coins, we don't mind, but it's not the point. Um, and I think that helped them feel less alone. And then we experienced the difficulty of reading it.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

And then we were like, Ollie, why what do you what's the deal with this book? Why is it so hard to read? And Ollie's just like, shut up.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

Yeah, and like so we get to the book club discussion, and only Ollie has finished the book. Everybody else had not gotten all the way through it. I was very close.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

I was very close.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

I shifted from the the audible version, because that's typically how I consume books, to getting the physical version. And I will say the parts that I read with my eyes were much easier to process. And I think that is the case with some books. This is definitely one of them. I think when I have given this some space and time, and maybe on vacation somewhere, I might pick up this book and try reading it with my eyeballs and see how that feels.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Yeah. I I wouldn't mind restarting this book because I feel like for a long time I was just really confused. And by a long time, I mean like two-thirds of the book. Um, I was really confused about e like there's times where just a whole lot's not explained, like who's even there? Like who are the characters? Like what are they doing? And then it like before you get to any of those answers, there's a flashback that you don't even realize that you tripped your way into. And you're like, what? They're on a they're in a hot tub now? Like, I thought they were clearing out a hotel or something. Now they're in a they're they're they're partying. They're partying in a hot tub. But then the zombies are in the hot tub, and then it's revealed that it's a dream sequence, and it's like, oh, okay. I get okay. Sometimes it feels like I'm being gaslit when I'm reading this book.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

Maybe that's part of, I mean, he did ha have a dream.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

Whitehead did have a dream.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

It's true.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

And and I don't know about others, but I will say personally, I sometimes struggle with dis discerning whether something was a dream or real, because my dream, especially like when I first wake up, uh, sometimes like a week later, I'll like remember something, then I'll have to be like, did that happen? Or was that a dream? And I have to ask people who are in the context to be like, did that happen? Because I really can't recollect the what it is.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

So that is also kind of my own mental experience.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

But I I I wonder if like going back and reading it a second time, if I would just have a better experience, just knowing, knowing that there's like this temporal displacement. Because I I didn't know that for a lot of the book. I was just like, why are we here? Like, what happened to get us here? Did I miss something? Do I have to go back? Like, I'd I spent so much time backtracking. So, like, yeah, I've I've probably read this book three or four times over because I hit the back button on Audible so many times.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Yeah. I want to read some discussion commentary. I'm not gonna name names. If you want to join Patreon, you can see the folks talking about it uh in the discussion thread, but just some really great quotes. This book is boring. Uh I've read Underground Railroad and enjoyed it enough that when I saw he had a zombie novel, I was curious to see his take. So again, I like it's he's clearly a great writer. It just isn't landing in the way a typical zombie book is. Um we many of us in the dark night of wondering if it was just us, just me individually having a problem with this book, went to Goodreads and discovered that solidly many people are struggling with this book. Um, somebody shared a spoiler that there uh is a desiccated zombie wearing a thong that Mark Spitz runs into.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

There's also this one zombie that Mark talks about, um, who he refers to as the Marge because of the hairstyle that this zombie had when they died, um, which was uh a hairstyle that was from some TV show that he remembered from his childhood, like the TV show was made made this hairstyle famous and they called it the Marge. I don't think it was the Simpsons. I like what he was describing sounded like Three's company. Oh some but it could have been a made-up show. Um, I don't know. But maybe it was, maybe it was Marge Simpson, he just didn't say it. But this this Marge gets referenced for like two-thirds of the book, like it just pops up and he just keeps on referencing the Marge. And I'm like, it happened in like the first chapter. Like, why are we still talking about this five and a half hours into the book?

SPEAKER_04 28:12

I mean, is that surprising to you though? Because again, that is how certain brains work. Like you have a special reservoir inside your brain for like so many random, to me, random facts that captured your interest in a deep way. And at any point, your brain just might loop to them.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah, I get that. I'm just my argument was from a storytelling perspective. Like when you tell a story, kind of like pacing, you have to pace, you have to keep moving forward. And um, and this and this one kind of just hung on things for a really long time and then looped around and around and around. Uh, which I, you know, it was intentional. It was intentional, so I I can't be like, yeah, well, that's bad writing. I can't say that because it's it's not, it's what he intended to do. He took he told he wrote a a book that is excellent writing, but not a great story.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

That's a perfect way to describe it.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

And for him, the story being not a great story doesn't matter. Um, and like if you if you read about this book and the people who have dissected it and have taken a long time to understand its deeper meanings, you can see what this the bigger thing that he's saying with the book.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

But I couldn't do that just from reading it.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

Yeah. And I also want to say something that I think is important. Like we've talked about how we are making a an intentional effort to make sure that the books we are reading represent the lived experiences of people across the board whenever possible. And we're both white people. Um, I don't know about you. I haven't experienced what it's like to be black in America. Haven't done that. And so I do really think in the same way that if I as a white person read Beloved and I don't know in advance that it's black characters, a lot of what you all like me just self-inserted and assumed that they were white characters. And I do really think that there's pro I'm gonna take a guess, but folks, you know, I maybe I'm wrong, because again, I can't know. But like I do think sometimes books are not written for they're written for another audience that's not me as a white person, and that's totally okay. But what that means is I'm not gonna pick up on everything because I literally just don't have the context. Yeah. So I think that may be also part of the struggle here, and I want to say that out loud because there's nothing wrong with a book not being like for everybody. Sometimes books are for certain people to get and understand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

And there's also some some context that you really could only get if you were privy to some very specific knowledge. Um, experience might be one of those things. Uh the experience of of being Colson Whitehead and being uh a black man in America in 2011, um, which I have I have not been.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

Thank you for verifying since people can only hear your voice, which again would still probably give you away. Yeah, I think it gives me away. I think we both have white people voices. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Um but like you look you learned something about Mark Spitz.

SPEAKER_04 31:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

That I don't know, I don't know who would know this, but it seems to be such an important detail in order to understand who Mark Spitz is and why he's called Mark Spitz.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Let's talk about who Mark Spitz is first. So there's the character Mark Spitz, we've already mentioned. They are employed as a sweeper in Manhattan for corporations to clear out the city so it can be used again and also to get stuff to sell. Mark Spitz is a black man. However, that is not clear, and I think intentionally so, um, until his name is revealed why it was his name. And then it becomes obvious. So the real Mark Spitz that he's named after is Mark Andrew Spitz, who is a former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion, and he is white, so very, very white. Uh, and in the book, there is this moment where uh he's recalling about a time where he was basically cornered by zombies, and everybody else and his crew jumped into the river to get away, but Mark wouldn't. And so his crew decided to call him Mark Spitz to make fun of him because it was sort of leaning into this stereotype that black people can't swim. They decided to name him after an Olympic swimmer.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

To sort of mock him. Um, and like that requires knowing who Mark Spitz is.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah. Who was who was an Olympic swimmer in the 70s?

SPEAKER_04 33:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Um, we we talked to one person who knew what who Mark Spitz was. Um, and that's because they were alive in the 70s.

SPEAKER_04 33:14

Yeah. So there's just this is these are the contextual things, but they're all things you can find out. I will just interrupt my conversation with Dan here now to let you all know that we have a new way of dealing with pop, pop, pop, pop, pop sounds. And so if the audio on my end is fucked up and extra poppy or extra quiet at moments, it's my fault. It's because I move too much when I'm talking and get too close or too far away from this mic. And we're gonna put the new the old pop filter back on because I clearly can't handle this one.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Yeah, Leah gets gets very animated when talking about Olympic swimmers.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Leah's over here swimming through the air.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

Yeah.

Skells Stragglers And Coping Games

SPEAKER_04 33:54

We should talk zombie mechanics because they're unique in this book in a really fun way. And they have, of course, they're not called zombies.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Oh, yeah, you can't call them zombies.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Skells and stragglers. Skells are your classic zombies. They're aggressive, they want to eat people, they're driven by instinct and hunger, and if you run into one, you're in trouble. Yeah. Classic.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

I think there's also skeletons, which are more bony, but like the skells are like on their way to being skeletons.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

Yeah. Yeah. I would say they probably look a lot like the um forever duplicated singular graphic. Uh what is graphic the word I'm looking for? CG computer graphic image of a zombie in the book and movie we reviewed this last year that I'm not remembering. It's there's a love story involved. Oh, yeah. Uh the cold heart, warm heart, warm bodies. That's the one. That was cool how you got there. Yes. Warm bodies. Cold, warm, some temperature. If you watch that movie, that's how I picture skells. Yeah, the the bonies. Yes. Except for the bonies um have more human behaviors. The skulls look like the bonies in the movie, but they are classic zombies. On the flip side, there are stragglers. Do you want to talk about the stragglers, Dan?

SPEAKER_02 35:13

I don't know much about them. Um, to be honest, when reading this book, I don't remember a whole lot of interactions with the zombies. Interesting. What I remember from other people talking about them, aren't they the ones that kind of like freeze in place and they just kind of stand there?

SPEAKER_04 35:29

They're often will like return to a place that was meaningful to them when they were not zombies.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Oh, like they go to the mall and then they just like stand by the fountain.

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Yeah. Um, and it's interesting that you don't because the things that stand out to me the most are the zombie encounters in the book.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Yeah. I mean, the temporal, the whole like back and forth. I didn't I didn't know when we were in the apocalypse or when he was just pontificating about New York City.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Yeah, it was that just demonstrates how much extra hard it was too.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Half the book, I didn't know what city zone one took place in because he so often talked about Buffalo. He would talk about Buffalo, and then sometimes he would go on and on and on about New York City, and I'm like, I think zone one is in New York City.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

Did you read the back of the book that says it's based in Manhattan?

SPEAKER_02 36:16

No, I don't recommend it.

SPEAKER_04 36:17

Did you read the description I wrote on Patreon that says it's based in Manhattan? I'm talking about when I was reading the book. Well, typically, I'm just saying like most people go in with that knowledge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

I did say I read the book. And I like literally halfway through, I'm like, I don't like because he can move. He can move through space and time with his legs. And apparently his broken brain. And I don't know if he went on a road trip and he's in Buffalo now, or if he's still in New York City. Sometimes he's in both. Sometimes both. Yeah. He's back and forth. And I just never knew. I never knew what city he was in. I never knew what time it was. I didn't know if there were zombies around him. I didn't know if he was fighting zombies. I didn't know so much when I was reading this book. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 37:01

So, like reading this book is literally the equivalent of the conversation we had about what we were recording today.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah. The the the zombies, I remember the Marge. The Marge. He talked about it for like two-thirds of the book.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

But he did not that I don't that's just what stuck with you for some strange reason. So let me tell you. It stuck with him. It stuck with him for the whole book. True. Let me inform you about the stragglers. They are basically stuck repeating a moment from their past life. They have some level of like fragmented memory or personality, and they're also no risk. They just kind of like stand there. Yeah. Um, and what's really interesting is how the sweepers who are charged with clearing out all of these zombies treat the skells and the stragglers differently. Finding it. Okay. There's a lot of fucking weird games that they play with the zombies. So, first of all, they play skell mutilation games. So, specifically with skells, the Mark Spitz describes how he doesn't do it, but other people in his crew will like deliberately mutilate the bodies in really fucked up ways. And it's like considered kind of a game to do terrible things to them.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:14

Um, scales are referred to as it's. Stragglers still get pronouns. So like if they run into a straggler, there was one moment uh where there was a straggler in like a back office somewhere, and it was a she. So stragglers get pronouns, skells don't. Um, but they also play a game with the stragglers, which is called Solve the Straggler. And what they're trying to solve is the story of why the fuck they are where they are. Oh. Like, why is this back office so important? Like, why was this the place that this woman chose to go to? It's it by all like, did she own it? Did her husband go work there? Did like what is the story behind why they end up where they are in that, like, because they because they are going places for a reason or being in a certain place stuck for a reason. So it's really interesting because they it like I think really explicitly navigates the dehumanization that happens with zombies and like the stragglers are still human enough that they they give stories and they're less likely to do things like mutilate them. But I almost think it must be a coping mechanism when you are out there just killing what were people every fucking day to somehow like make it a game to mutilate them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

I mean, I I think that we see that in in in people in the way that they treat people that they just don't think should be treated as humans. I mean, that's that's what that's what we see uh in Palestine with with Israeli soldiers. Like they they don't treat them like they're people, they like they don't see them as human beings, so they're perfectly okay with doing horrific things to them.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

Yeah, and what is this book about? But the idea of being a post-racial society, and yet what what they do to the zombies, to the skells specifically, is what white America has done to every other race.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:11

Dehumanized them and done horrible things that we don't need to repeat. If you don't know the history, then read uh oh, what is that book called? There's there's many books, so I'm not even gonna say which one. Just go read a book about Tuskegee. Read a book. Go read a book. Go read about Tuskegee, the Tuskegee trials. That's like one example of an endless number. Go read about Cancer Alley that's happening right now, about where toxic chemical plants are located and and what happens when they're only placed primarily in black communities, and the cancer rates are ungodly high. Um, that's all a function of racism that makes it okay that some people are disposable because they're not seen as fully human, um, which is why I chose subhuman for our intro today. Yeah. Deep thoughts by Leah.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Um I think there's also a touch of that in just about any zombie apocalypse show, movie, book. Like I think that, you know, the thing that we like about the zombie apocalypse is that we have this um subhuman enemy that we can we can fight without conscience. You know, like zombies are coming at you, just lob off their heads and you keep on going about your day. And that's the fun part. Um, and I think most of us agree that that's that's the fun part about the zombie apocalypse. But like if you apply that lens and you're just like, you know, maybe maybe this is more telling of how we like to dehumanize our enemies, um, then it feels a little bit weirder. Like, I'm not saying don't kill the zombies because obviously they'll they want to eat us. Um but uh you know it it I feel like the genre as a whole like kind of kind of says something about a person and how they feel about dispatching zombies. Like, are they going to do the most elaborate, most violent, most gory thing possible when they encounter a zombie? Um are they are they gonna leave a zombie alone if they don't bother them? Are they gonna lock a bunch of zombies in a barn? Yeah. That's yeah, harsh all.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Because they they think they're not able to save them. Uh that is that is a central question and theme of zombie books for sure. And I think there's so much to be said here about parallels between real life soldiers and going and doing these kinds of things and having to find ways to cope with them. But again, like some of that shows who the people are. Yeah um, but also that it's like it really is coping. Because another game the sweepers play is name that bloodstain. I do remember that one. Yeah. You want to explain that one?

SPEAKER_02 42:40

I don't remember a whole lot, but isn't it? Isn't it like they look at the uh at a bloodstain and they try to like make a shape out of it? Kind of like looking at clouds. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

And they're like, oh, there's a bunny in that one.

SPEAKER_04 42:52

Yeah. And like when it's your job for very low pay and you don't get a lot of rest to just day by day kill people and collect their stuff.

Capitalism After The Collapse

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

I mean, how how much of a critique of capitalism? Like, how much more of a critique could you make?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Yeah. There was a detail about how they would collect things that I don't fully understand, which is that like they were paid by a corporation, a specific corporation, but they could only collect the things that were produced by that corporation.

SPEAKER_04 43:23

I think that was a law like from American Phoenix, the new government.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Um, I just I just don't really know what that was what that was saying, because like I feel like post-apocalypse, you know, they they they would lobby the the American Phoenix government to be like, no, we want all the stuff. Well, they can resell it. No, I mean, but they they would be like, we want all the stuff, even if it doesn't have our name on it. It belongs to us.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Well, I think what's interesting though is that like branded items always belong to the corporation that created them in a way, because they're branded. And it would be one very easy way of sorting things out post-apocalypse if you're a bunch of rich people who are in bunkers and okay, and you're hanging out, and then you know, you got like big Nestle, big Walmart, big Amazon, whatever, um, IKEA. You got a few of those people hanging around who have the ability to say, that shit's mine. They're gonna do it. And it's a very easy way to sort it out between them.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Between the rich fucks who got to survive with comfort, most likely.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Yeah, I wonder if it was like a statement on like digital rights management, like how how like now you don't really like you you don't own software anymore. Like you you subscribe to Adobe to get Photoshop, and you used to buy Photoshop.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

Well, in 2011, did you buy it or get a I feel like you bought it?

SPEAKER_02 44:48

You bought it still back then, but there were other things like Netflix was beginning its subscription models. Um so like you were getting to a point where you didn't own physical copies of movies or TV shows. Uh you just licensed them. And video games were also doing that for a long time, since like you know, it became kind of the norm in like 2005-ish to like buy your your PC games on Steam, and you would download it from the Steam servers, and you're like, Yep, I'm over here playing Minecraft, and uh but you didn't actually own Minecraft, you were just licensing it. You didn't it didn't belong to you, you couldn't take it off Steam and just run it by itself.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

This is why it's a literary book, because sorry, Colson, I know you said you don't care what it is, but I think it is because I it has a lot of opportunity to lay problems of our society over it and say, like, there's something that's being said here and critiqued. And that's actually one of the key points of this book is it's about um specifically Colson making the point that modern American life basically turns people into living dead through dehumanization systems and culture. And that even though, well, actually, I'm gonna read this quote from Whitehead instead of ruining it by trying to paraphrase, he says, My take on the ruined world that the survivors find themselves in is not far or not too far from what they experienced before. So now that the apocalypse is in abeyance and they're trying to rebuild things, all the people that they used to be, everything that they used to want, all the bad things they used to do, are just waiting to be recalled back into existence and play. So even though 98% of the population is dead and these people have been through incredible trauma, all of this, all the sort of terrible stuff of the pre-apocalypse world is just waiting to come back.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Yeah. And I I think that's something that's very true about the zombie apocalypse genre is like a lot a lot of authors play with that idea, which is that, you know, the the problems don't go away. They just they're just waiting.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

Yeah. And not only are zombies objectified in this world, but humans are too, which we absolutely are in our society. Like the fact that we're called resources is really fucked up. Yeah. And also that recently the CEO whose name I'm forgetting of uh OpenAI, what's his name? Sam Altman. He made the argument that like it's okay that AI uses all the resources it does because it's because we gotta consider how much resources people use.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Yeah, you tried to compare it to how many how much how many resources a human being consumes in their lifetime before they learn of a job skill.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Um he wasn't even correct. It was it was like two to almost three times more than a human being would consume in their lifetime.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

Yeah, but I think the fundamental, even if it was more, the fundamental problem with that is trying to evaluate the value of human life against a fucking machine because of resource consumption, where like one of those things inherently being alive requires resources.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

Being living a comfortable life requires resources. What a data center does is we they are manufacturing need for a thing that we never needed before with the express intention to make us dependent on it, so we can't live without it.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

He wants it to be too big to fail. And so he wants it to basically be a utility in our everyday life. They're making us dependent actively right now, and the data centers that they're doing are destroying the environment. They are not creating more life. So, like, what the actual fuck?

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Yeah. Also, it's it's making this statement that like a human being consumes all of these resources through its life in order to become productive as a part of the machine. Not just because they're alive and they need to eat food to live. Like eating food to live to Sam Altman is not a viable expenditure of resources. Somebody who is merely alive shouldn't be given those resources if they're not uh becoming a doctor or um working on an assembly line.

SPEAKER_04 49:03

Yeah. They're not if they're not a useful tool for the capitalists' overlords. Yeah. Basically.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Where's uh does anybody know uh Sam Altman's um home address? It's just asking.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

Ask me for a friend.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

No raisin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:21

Um there's there's also this obsession in the book. Mark Spitz has this obsession with being mediocre. Yeah. He doesn't want to he doesn't want to stick his neck out, he doesn't want to be too good or too bad at anything. He wants to blend in. Yeah, he's a beast. And that is also what our current modern society requires for you to succeed. It's not good to stand out. We, I mean, like, how much were we trained as children to like be like everybody else? Because if you're not, you will be ostracized.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

You know, like even in my new job, I've made an intentional decision to be more average in what I wear because I know that there's an expectation and that if I showed up in my clown clothes, my clown couture, as I call it.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Leah wears very colorful clothes.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

Yeah, very bright, very floofy, very fun. I enjoy it. Uh, but I'm working in a field where like that's not normal. And I need to look quote unquote normal to build trust with the people and other partners I'm working with. And nobody told me to make that change. Um, in fact, my friend was like, you should be able to wear whatever you want, who also works there. And she's right, but I am making an intentional decision to average out the way I look because it serves me. Self-protection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Yeah. Uh nails that stick up get hammered.

SPEAKER_04 50:45

Yep. Yeah. I was told by my boss once that my hair was too big. Not my current boss, just to be clear, but I had an experience where I was, it was um pandemic days. We didn't have any form of air conditioning in this house, and it was like unseasonably hot. And because we were like a year and a half into the pandemic, I hadn't got my hair cut. And like, if you've seen pictures of me, you know I got big curly hair. And I had really long hair at the time, and it was like blisteringly hot in the house. So I piled it up on top of my head so it wouldn't be on my neck. Yeah, yeah. And I did it in a way that I thought looked classy and quote unquote. No, I wasn't doing a march. It was like a large, messy bun. Okay. But like I can't have I have a lot of hair. Period. And he DM'd me and said, your hair's really big.

unknown 51:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

So yeah, like I think Mark Spitz is making a strategy to try to blend in. And they also talk in the book about everything, or I shouldn't say they. Whitehead talks in the book about everything being gray. The the buildings are gray, the streets are gray, all of the stuff is gray from debris, and the people themselves are gray.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Yeah. So are the zombies.

SPEAKER_04 51:55

Yeah, everything is gray. And it's also like an attempt at that like cover-up that actually there is difference in the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

Yeah. I I think that's also a really good statement on like the whole post-racial society thing. Like, what if everyone was gray?

SPEAKER_04 52:11

Yeah. It's like uh it's basically a metaphor for colorblindness.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Yeah, yeah. It literally is.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

Just gray. Um, but it actually sort of demonstrates that nobody is because they then nickname him Mark Spitz. Right. So even though he's covered in ash and gray.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

Even though he's gray like everyone else, they they still have to make a comment about him not being able to swim.

Race Mark Spitz And Colorblindness

SPEAKER_04 52:35

Yeah. They also do genetic testing for people who are allowed to enter Buffalo or not. I mean, that's a pretty express connection to race.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Buffalo's a really um posh environment, apparently.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Yeah. And the thing that you noticed was that there's a point in the story where Mark Spitz talks about how uh which were the three communities? Do you remember? I don't know. Oh no, I should have written it down.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

I mean, like there's Buffalo.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

No, the communities that were absolutely fucking obliterated in the apocalypse.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Yeah. So uh Birmingham, Alabama.

SPEAKER_04 53:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Uh Oakland, California. Yep. And wasn't it a place in Florida?

SPEAKER_03 53:13

Was it St. Augustine?

SPEAKER_02 53:14

I think it was St. Augustine.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:16

So um, so I think St. Augustine was nuked. Um, Oakland was firebombed. And then he says that he he doesn't he can't even describe what happened to uh Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Yeah, and they're all places with significant black populations historically. Meanwhile, Manhattan is being prioritized.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Yeah, they're saying protected. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:42

I wonder why. So this is where I think like the book has a lot of really good messages. And if I was an English student in university, I think I would have had a lot of fun reading it from the point of view of like what is the thing I want to pull out and discuss in an essay. And it's not a zombie story that's like enjoyable to read as a plot.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Yeah. It didn't have a real plot.

SPEAKER_04 54:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

Um, but like I, you know, like I think about it a lot. Yeah. Um, it's just it's just one of those things where like when I was reading it, I was kind of frustrated and upset when I was reading it because I just couldn't it was it was it was hard work to read this book. But now the more that I think about what I remember from that book, the more I'm like, I found it interesting. And I I would like to read it again, and I hope it would be a better experience.

SPEAKER_04 54:35

Yeah, because you've but again, like it required context to be. I think like reading it again with all the context you have, you're gonna pick up on things.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Yeah. Maybe it was meant to be read multiple times.

SPEAKER_04 54:47

You know, if we were cool enough, we could ask Colson.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:50

Alas, I don't think we are. And not because if I could like walk up to Colson Whitehead and say, hey, you want to talk with us, that he wouldn't, but just because he has an agent and I don't think I'll ever cross the gates of the agent, effectively.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

The agents really like to step in the way and block the the random podcasters.

SPEAKER_04 55:09

The little micro pockets of like, hi, we're a tiny podcast. And they're like, fuck off, kid. Colson Whitehead has other engagements that people will pay him to do. Go away. You're not as good as Colson. Get out of here. Again, I don't think Colson would agree with any of that.

SPEAKER_02 55:25

But that's Colson would probably think that we were really cool. Yeah. That's not that's what I tell myself.

SPEAKER_04 55:30

Yeah, we can just believe that because we'll never actually know. And the truth of the matter is, like, because of his um fame in the literary world, he's probably booked, you know? People somebody's gotta protect his time. I respect that.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 55:47

I would love to have somebody like, and maybe Dan, this is my new job for you. You need to like physically remove me from my seat at in work. And when I say, but I gotta do this one more thing.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

Yeah. I come in with a pry bar.

SPEAKER_04 55:58

Yeah, and I'm like, I gotta do some more thing. You need to ask me, like, is it due tomorrow? And if I say no, I gotta be your agent. You gotta be my agent.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

Yeah. Um, I do want to return back to the the point that Colson Whitehead makes about this like urge to return to the quote unquote normal.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:17

And that normal is super problematic in the first place. Like, we have a government named American Phoenix. It's re-established in Buffalo, and everything they care about doing is making it the way it was, to the point where they deliberately go out and find other survivor groups and sort of force them to be like removed out of the context and go to Buffalo. They also name some of the early um, for lack of a better word, refugee camps, things like happy acres.

unknown 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:46

Uh and there are, there's even a really great story in there. I'm curious if you remember this, Dan, where there was a commune um at this place called Willoughby Manor, and there were 30 people. They had a really great system. They always had the lights out at night so they could hide in the basement, and zombies wouldn't find them. They would drink fancy wine at night and watch TV reruns. Sounds like a great time. Yeah. They were really skilled foragers. They were doing well. But then this one guy inside of the commune feels like it's not fair they should be doing so well while others suffer. So, do you know what he does? Do you remember? I don't. He opens the gates and brings the scales in.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

Is his name Steve?

SPEAKER_04 57:29

Yes. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

It's always I actually don't know if his name's Steve.

SPEAKER_04 57:34

But yeah, there is a lot in this book that's interesting. Also, like when he does describe dreams, sometimes I'm not always sure when I'm reading that it is a dream or not, but it's so beautifully written. And his gore descriptions, I wish I had made um like quotes, saved quotes for some of the gore descriptions. They are incredible. Um that's one of the things I love the most about this book.

SPEAKER_02 57:54

Yeah. I mean, the descriptions alone really makes me want to up my up my game because like uh he does he does it so artfully that it's it's uh intimidating, to be honest.

SPEAKER_04 58:08

Yeah, truly. We didn't formally name a segment like the racist capitalist misogynistic imperialism of the living dead because the entire book

Misogyny Sexuality And Unease

SPEAKER_04 58:15

is that. Yeah. It's a dis it's an exploration of all of those things, but what we haven't talked much about yet is misogyny. So I want to touch on that. You know, earlier I mentioned that uh Colson Whitehead describes Mark Spitz seeing a zombie in like a zombie in her thong. Yeah. And there are numerous descriptions of like a weird sexual objectification of zombies by Mark Spitz that are uncomfortable. And I don't totally know what Colson Whitehead is saying. I want to believe he's critiquing something and not just following and falling into a trap of misogyny, but it's a little weird.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Yeah. I mean, it it might it might be. It might be something like that, but I feel like this is also exploring the psychology of somebody who is in the apocalypse and probably, you know, lonely.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

Um, we've seen this in a in in a movie before, um, The Battery. Oh my god. Where one of the characters spoiler alert.

SPEAKER_04 59:13

Fast forward two minutes if you don't want to know this disturbing happens in the battery.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

The battery is a really good movie and you should watch it. Um and this will spoil one part of it, which is very surprising, so skip ahead if you don't want that spoiled. But anyways, in the battery, uh, one of the characters is alone in a car and a zombie who was once female. I guess still is. I don't know how they identify. They're a zombie.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

Um, feel free to let us know.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

They have tits.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Yeah. Um, and they are trying to get in the car, but said tits are pressing up against the window. And it's a little bit damp because she's covered in gore. Um, so it's like sm smearing around or pressing up against. Yeah. And uh he he starts he starts doing some stuff that is very awkward to watch.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:03

Some of he didn't have pleasuring, yeah. Some might say.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

And then he gets caught by his friend who ruthlessly makes fun of him.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

We need to do an episode on the battery and invite Ollie on because they are the person who let us. I think we watched it with them. We did on Discord. That was fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:20

But yeah, so I I think that there's something to say about like loneliness in the apocalypse and like loneliness in real life. Like like admiring a zombie in a thong isn't that different from like watching porn in a way.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

Like is are both absolving loneliness?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

Yeah, I think so. Oh I I, you know, like he's looking at it, he's getting something from it, but it doesn't seem to be hurting anyone because he's uh viewing it and the thing that he's watching doesn't have an opinion about how he's um how how he's consuming that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Um and like he he probably he probably sees it and he's like it's reminding him of you know what it's like to be alive and be in love and be with a person, um, but instead he's out here uh moving corpses.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:11

Yeah, and it might also be recognition that they were once a person, too. Like a person who was a sexual being out there wearing their thong. There's there is some really interesting stuff around sexuality in this book as well. There's I feel like we should have said at the beginning of this there were spoilers, but too late. Um so many spoilers. However, I have to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:30

You had months to read this book.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

True, but also I think that you if you haven't read the book and you um are like us and might find a book like this challenging without a ton of context, now you have some context to enjoy it with that I think would actually make it better. And also there's no plot to spoil. No, you can just well, there I mean, there's still a there's stories.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

There's details, there's details to spoil.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

Yeah. Well, this is this is the detail to spoil. Yeah. He describes remembering when he was like six years old walking into his parents' bedroom and seeing his mother give his dad a blowjob. And then when the breakout occurs, he goes to his parents' house and he finds his mother kneeled in the same position, eating his dad's intestines, but in a way that looks like she's giving him a blowjob.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

Because she's kneeling. It's like basically this the way that they're standing, um, or the way that they're positioned that like looked the same and evoked that disturbing childhood memory. I mean, I'm a self-inserting disturbing childhood memory.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

It is an interesting to consider because like which was more traumatic? Like being six years old and witnessing that, or literally witnessing your mother eating your father, literally. Um, and they are both dead now.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:46

I feel like the second. The second, yeah. I think the second, but at first thinking that maybe like it's sort of an innocent act compared to eating your partner's intestines. Um, and like I don't know. I would find that disturbing to see. I can I can happily say I never walked in on my parents, but I know of. They were doing stuff I didn't know and I don't want to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

Yeah, I didn't either, um, unless I blocked it out of my memory because it was so traumatic.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

That is also possible. But I also think like if we were a more sex-positive culture, it might not be so traumatizing to be like, oh, you're doing a thing that's private. I'm gonna leave now. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

Oh, sorry, guys, you're making me a new sibling. Yeah. We'll be back later.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

I mean, I don't know. I don't know enough about this and like cultural context and nuance and how other cultures think about it. I just know my Protestant prudishness are deeply ingrained about my parents having sex, which clearly they did because I am here. So yeah. Yeah, they did it. Yeah, they did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

At least once. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

I also want to like talk about like why was he so obsessed with his uncle's apartment? I'm trying I've been trying to unpack what that was really about. Like, is it because that was the future he saw for himself? Was like his uncle lived in Manhattan, he had a nice apartment, he would have cute girlfriends come in. He, you know, when Mark Spitz was a kid, he'd meet his girlfriends and he would watch movies on his uncle's really big TV and like look out at the city lights and listen to music on his record player. And it was like this just like really positive memory that like if there was something that I think he returned to a lot. I don't remember Marge so much, I remember the apartment.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:20

Yeah. Um, I I really thought that that was gonna be a bigger part of the plot. Like, Mark Spitz needs to get back to his uncle's his uncle's apartment, but it didn't really seem to come back.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:30

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:31

As far as I remember anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:32

I'm just looking at my notes to see if we have not covered something.

Dark Times And No Going Back

SPEAKER_04 1:04:36

Yeah. So there is a lesson for the living, I think, in this book, which I always like to think about with zombie books, which is like, we're in a hard time right now. Oh, are if you're listening to this many years in the future when this was recorded, this was recorded again March 20th, 2026. Um, we have a very old man with dementia and malignant narcissism as our president, and he is decimating Iran and the people of Iran. Um, and also basically fucking over the entire world by making oil prices spike to places like literally, I was listening to an episode, or not an episode, listening to the radio, and they're talking about how countries in the global south, so like meaning basically Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and other really poor countries, are basically just gonna have to do without oil. Like they're just not gonna be able to do anything because they will not be able to afford it because richer countries are like hoarding it right now and have the ability to pay these obscene prices. And so they won't be the we'll pay the financial cost, but we'll absorb that better than places that we're already struggling. So everybody is being affected by this. Um, and that's just the latest horrifying news. There's so much outside of that. Dan, do you want to briefly mention what you learned about the Epstein files? Have you verified it?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Oh, I don't even know what the thing is I learned about the Epstein files.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:59

It was about how. You were watching a video about how nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, and two thousand and one there's just magically no emails. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

There's there's a there is an Epstein Files time gap between nineteen ninety-nine and two thousand one, which um a number of things happened during that time, such as the the uh Bill Clinton sex scandal, because I don't think it's right that we call it the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Um uh there was the 2000 election where um there was a hand recount in Florida, specifically in Palm Beach, which Who lives in Palm Beach, Jeff Epstein and Donald fucking Trump. Um weird that that happened. Uh also um, you know, you might have heard of this little thing called 9-11 that happened around that time. Um and there's just there's just nothing in the Epstein files around that time for for two years. There is literally nothing. Like they went from I thought it was three years. Three okay, three years. Nothing like they were just emailing every day, just being like, Hey, you I love beef jerky and sometimes cream cheese um to like hey, let's go radio silent for for a number of years, which obviously they didn't do, it's just missing. Um and then they just went right back to it. And then in 2003, um, Gislaine Maxwell got an email from Ed Epstein, who I don't know who Epst Ed Epstein is. Probably a relative of Jeff's. Yeah, who knows? Let's look into that. Asks if Gislain Maxwell wants to be on the 9-11 Shadow Committee. Like the investigation on 9-11. That no one knows about. Um, and she turned it down. She's like, nah, I got other shit to do. Fascinating stuff, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:58

Yeah. So my point is, thanks for sharing that very disturbing knowledge. My point is, is we are in dark times. Um most of American history we've been in war, so like that's kind of not new, but also this this some of this what's happening in Iran is a little bit unprecedented in terms of like the fact that we have Pete Hegsith saying, like, fuck the rules of war. We're just about carnage now, like as much maximum damage as we can.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:25

Yeah, he said he said he gave orders to the Marines to take no quarter, which means take no prisoners. So that's literally what it means is execute everyone, which is a war crime. Just saying it is a war crime.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:41

Yeah. Uh so yes, I think most people listening know that that's just a cup just a few things that have been happening and are happening in this moment. And there will come a time, hopefully in the nearer future than further, but there will come a time where this ends. And that will happen because people fight back for however many fucking years it takes. Maybe decades, maybe a hundred years. Who knows? Because Russia's had Putin for how long? 20 something. Yeah. So like this could be a very long haul. Hope again, hoping not, but at some point it's gonna change. And what I really want us to take away from the story of this book is that we're not trying to return to the time before Trump. If we're gonna have everything fucking be burned down and destroyed this way, then let's actually think about what is a more humane world. And guess what? It's not gonna be post-racial because people aren't blind. Well, some people are blind. Some people are blind, but actually, so quick side note, I remember um being at my mom's house and like accidentally creating some pressing some button that suddenly made a TV show I was watching describe for somebody who is have um issues with seeing visually what was going on. And every time there was a black person on the screen, they would describe that they were a black person, but did not for white people. Just like 100% throws the idea of colorblindness out the window because even people, it's considered so important. Yeah, need to know if there's a blind personality on screen. Right. And so, like, that's not a that being colorblind is not helpful. Um, being color conscious of the history and the structural issues that we have today is, and we could redesign the world to be significantly better, where we have universal basic income, we have health care. Our department of now called war budget is fucking 50%, 75% less than it is today. We have decent education systems, we have more local governance. Like there's a lot of really cool things that we should be thinking about, how we want it to be different, because there's going to be a lot of pressure to just want to make it back to what it was. And what it was was already bad. Yeah. And so I feel like that's the message of this book.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

Yeah. Going back to what it was was great for white people, um, but not for everybody else.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:03

Yeah, it was great for white people. It was great for the people who are rich enough to be okay. Even the manor people that are in the commune, like, I think there's two messages there. One, that those kinds of places got destroyed, and like the idea but also be that like technically the person who did that's not wrong. Like they were the reason why they were doing so well was the privilege of having that manner. And while other people were suffering and dying en masse, they were drinking wine and watching TV at night. Um, that's a literal example of what it's like right now in this world.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:35

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:36

So yeah, I just like really want to encourage and like they'll always try and push us to the middle and say that these ideas are too radical. We can't do that. We just gotta stabilize things first. We just gotta get back to the stuff that we had before we can do something else. And that's all a fucking lie because all of it is what we imagine and what we choose to prioritize. That's it. Everything we have today. So that's my TED talk about how I feel about the message of this book.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

Great TED talk, Leah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:04

Yeah, this book was a lot, and I feel like I feel like it's one of those things that you know we could we could probably talk about it for days and days and days. Um, and it was really cool talking to people about it when we discussed the book um on Patreon. Well, we discuss it on Google Meets.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:20

On Google Meets, but in live live, and then we took wrote about or people had like a asynchronous discussion on Patreon.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

Yeah. Um, but yeah, it was it was really cool. Like this is the first time that we've done like a live discussion about a book with people. We got so many different uh takes and ideas about this book um from fellow other people who haven't finished it. So uh it was really funny when everybody showed up and it's like, so who finished it? And then everyone's like looking at each other. Like, is somebody gonna raise their hand? Ollie raised their hand.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:59

Yeah. I mean, we do we these are some things that are important to me. Our book club is DNF friendly. Yeah, it's slow reader friendly. We're only gonna do a few of them a year. Hence, you know, Ollie finished the book in January and it was early March when we I think it was March 6th when we had the discussion, and Deanna and I had not finished it yet. Yeah. Uh even though it had been assigned technically for two months.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

I think DNFing still gives you something to say about a book. Like if you DNF it, you have you have something to say.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:29

One person joined, who I'm not gonna name because I don't have their consent, who only read like a couple of pages and then read a description, a part of the book where uh Colson Whitehead describes bumpy glass in a bathroom. And like that one description bothered her so much that she was like, I can't keep reading this. What the fuck is bumpy glass?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:51

Bumpy glass just became like the the rally cry of the DNFers.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:57

Just like bumpy glass. You know, for all the beautiful prose he wrote, I still don't understand how the glass was bumpy or why.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:06

Yeah. Well, you know what? Let's let's do a deep dive on it. Let's find out why that glass was bumpy.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:10

Why was the glass bumpy? Tell us. You know what would be great is if you you gave us a voicemail at 614-699-3006. I feel like that's our number. Yeah. So few numbers that I remember. Um, we haven't been using the voicemail lately. So like if you actually send us one, you'll do us a favor because otherwise we're gonna lose the number. And then Dan and I will have to voicemail ourselves. Um we haven't been uh repping it very often. No, we haven't. But if you if you feel the urge to give us a call and tell us your hypothesis of what the fuck bumpy glass might be in a bathroom, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:45

It was like a wall or something. Also, Colson Whitehead, if you are listening to this and like your your your agent is has like stepped out and like you took some time to listen to this podcast, and you're like the agent's call. I can I can I can listen to this in peace. Um, can you tell us what the bumpy glass is? Yeah, we need to know. Just give us a call. Yeah. Leave us a message, let us know. Um, because there's there's definitely one person that it really upset. Um, maybe it has something to do with some type of tactile sensational obsession. Um, that like what until until until they understand what you mean, they can't sleep. So it would really do us a big favor if you could just tell us how is it bumpy?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:32

What's bumpy? What is it? Yeah, like literally what is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:36

We need to know. Also, what's it like to write a book that's so divisive?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:40

Yeah. Um how does it feel to write a book that most people don't finish?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:45

Well, like it's too 50%, because I think that it has like three and a half out of five stars on on good reads. So it's like that sort of when I see a three and a half and then you read it, like you see a bunch of five stars, a bunch of one stars, and it sort of like evens out. Uh that is how I would describe this book.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:01

I feel like it's a very different experience though, than like somebody who's like, this book was too tropey. The the third time that they go to the inn and there's only one bed, I was out. And then this one is like, it was too hard. I don't know what the what the fuck was happening. It's like a way above my reading comprehension level.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:19

Yeah, I think some people like a challenging read. I really do.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:23

Yeah, I have I have heard people be like, it was a really challenging read. I had to that's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:27

And again, like in a in the right context, like 2003 Leah, who's in university in an English class, could have enjoyed this from that from the nerdy lens.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:37

You know what? And when I see when I next see my my uncle, who's um who's a uh scientist, uh at the next family get get together, I'm gonna suggest this book because I think he would enjoy a challenging read. Interesting, yeah. We should talk Zeds. Zeds. Oh man, I I feel like I gotta give it two scores. Okay. Um as a story, I give it like one Zed.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:02

Wow. Um out of ten people, ten being the highest you can get.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:07

Um, you know, I mean, I think that's harsh. Maybe I'll give it four.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:10

That was a very large bump.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:12

Yeah, I forgot that I was doing ten. Oh, okay. It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:16

We haven't we haven't done Zeds in a while yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

Uh, but as far as like the book, the book itself, the writing, the quality of it, it's like 10 out of 10. It's it's hard, it's hard, it's hard to give a bad score for writing style when it's so over my head that I can't even comprehend it.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:35

Yeah. I mean, I was thinking of just averaging those two things together and being like, this book is like a if I put both of those together, it's a six and a half. Yeah. What kept me coming back to it was just like these incredibly vivid descriptions of what was going on. Uh, and the lens that Mark Spitz was coming from, was fascinating. But like it was one of those things where I was able to focus for like five minutes and then something would be going on in the book, and I'd like be like, wait, what? And then I would either have to backtrack a bunch or my brain would just completely stop paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:06

Um, and that was the struggle with it. But I do think reading with my eyes, like the little bit that I did, really helped.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:12

Yeah. I I want to, I um, I really do want to give it another shot because I feel like going back and starting over, I might, I might be able to hold it together for a few chapters at least, and then be like, oh, that's why he's named Mark Spitz.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:29

We'll have to get pretty close to the end for the Mark Spitz reveal. Well, you know, I have something exciting

Next Book Club Pick And Rules

SPEAKER_04 1:18:36

to tell you, Dan. Oh. That was just our first Zion Book Club read, chosen primarily by me. Um, I don't remember, I think I consulted you, but I was like, I really want to read this book, particularly because it was the 15-year anniversary. Yeah. I think I'm not sure. And I really just wanted to read a Colson Whitehead book because I'd heard so much great stuff about him. Uh, and we have selected another book that we're not gonna tell you what it is yet. We're not? No, it was voted on by our book club community on Patreon. There will be an announcement there if you want to get a hard head start on the read. We're not gonna be talking about it in an episode until May 24th.

unknown 1:19:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:14

Yeah, we'll probably do the the book club live discussion if folks want to do it like early May, but that's what we're looking at. So we've got some time until it's out. And this book was decided upon, voted upon by everybody who was at the book club discussion and also just online. We had a lot of great discussion about it. I would say it is the opposite of this book. Uh, one person who actually suggested it said that uh they've read it at least four or five times and would keep reading it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:44

Um, it's it's uh a name of the book that you might know when you see it. You might have already read it, which like kudos to you. You don't have to read it, or you can read it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:53

And you can come chat with us about it. Uh, and I want to just give a heads up of like how we're choosing books in Zonia Book Club. Number one, audiobook is required, library accessible is required. So things that have been out for a little while, probably to be in a library because we want this to be as accessible as possible, both for people who just do better with listening to books and also people who don't want to buy every book they read. Um, that is number one. Number two, human created work only, not just for book club reads, but for any read. If there's genitive AI writing or cover art, uh, we will not be reviewing it or discussing it on the podcast because we support human creativity. Art is a human right. How strange. Never thought I had to say that. Uh, and last but most important, that we are prioritizing that at least 50% of the selections of books that we talk about with the community are from authors from groups who are historically underrepresented in zombie fiction. So that includes but is not limited to black, indigenous, and other people of color, Hispanic, Latina, queer folks, trans folks, disabled folks, women creators, the ones we're not seeing as much in the headlines as like this is the big zombie book.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:07

Um, and so if you have ideas of other things you'd like us to read beyond the one that we've selected right now, feel free to comment in the announcement of with the book that we're gonna read next and tell us. So we can include it in a future poll for the next book that we're gonna choose, uh, probably in early June.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:24

Yeah, then vote on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:26

Because that's how we're doing it.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:27

Yeah. So that's how it works. Again, uh, it's all on Patreon. You can go check out what the book is there. If you're curious, if you want to join the community, we'd love to have you there. It's also there because fuck Meta.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:38

Yeah. Really like that's the big one.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:40

We're trying to slowly but surely not live on Facebook and Instagram. We know that's where most people are, so we'll probably always be there. But we want a space that is not filled with ads. I don't, if I happen to click on some pots because I need to buy some pots for gardening, I don't want to see pot ads. Yeah. And I don't mean cannabis. I don't know. That would be really fun if I saw cannabis. I'd actually, you know what? I want to see cannabis ads, but I don't want to see plant pot ads for weeks after because I looked at them once on Home Depot.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:09

Yeah. And like we we buy a plant pot, and now they're like, we have plant pot sales. Get your plant pots. Yeah. Every other post. And it's like, I already bought some. Yeah. Also tired of shit being made into AI that I never asked for. Yeah, like you're getting your your AI pots. Yeah. Like, this pot is the best pot. It's like, that's an AI pot. It's literally different in every frame. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:33

Also tired of being surveilled. Yeah. And uh being being the product, because that's what we are. We are the product. The data that we provide is the product to corporations. If it's free, you are the product. Speaking of dehumanization.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:47

So come join us on Patreon. Again, I know it's called Patreon, which implies money.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:52

That's why we call it Free Treon.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:54

Free Treon. Thanks, Holly. Yeah, Free Treon donations welcome, but not expected because it's hard times out there. And like, we're doing this anyways. Yeah. And I have a job that I am so interested in that I have a hard time walking away from everybody. And I don't. Yeah. You know, if that changes again, we might be begging for some coins, but like that's not the position we're in right now. And I'm very grateful for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:19

Yeah. I mean, my boss wants me to come back, but do you want to talk about what you shared with how you what you you and your boss discussed, or no?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:26

No, no. It was it was I just sent a letter of resignation. Basically, I just said that it was uh it came at a good time in my life during a time of transition, gave me a lot of stability, and you know, if things change for me, I'd you know, I'll I'll be in touch. You know, I I I thought about uh joking around and being like, I reserve the right to come crawling back on my hands and knees. Um, but he he said that uh he would be happy to have me back in any capacity, which I thought briefly I should email him and say, I want to be the CEO. I think you should. But I'm afraid that he would say yes. And he would hand me the keys to the company and I'd be like, shit. You would not be able to do that. I didn't I didn't know that you were gonna actually say yes. I was calling your bluff. And now here I am running an excavation company. What am I doing? He would only say yes in a joke, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:22

It would be a joke. Absolutely would be. But then you'd need to like, I think if if you did it, you'd have to take it a step further and show up in like a suit and tie. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:30

Now I want to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:31

Yeah. With a little uh uh a name tag that says Dan, CEO. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:39

Just start bossing people around. I'll I'll have a perfectly pristine white hard hat. Just walk around. Not a suit and a tie, but a shirt and a tie. That's that's the uh the excavation company businessman um uniform. Um never, never the overcoat, never the coat, never the blazer. It's just the shirt, the tie, the pants, the belt, the shiny shoes, the shiny truck.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:05

That could tow anything, but never does. Anyways, thanks everybody for

Bumpy Glass Voicemail And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 1:25:10

listening.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:10

Yeah, thanks everybody for listening. Uh, as we said, if you want to go deeper, our book club lives on Freetreon. You get free bonus episodes, community chats, book club discussions, no paywall for full participation. Uh, it's our little survivor camp. Come join us. Come to the camp. Yeah. Uh you can get a sneak peek at what the next book is that we're going to read together. You can also support the show by leaving a rating or review. I think I ranted about that at the beginning of this episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:35

Somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:36

And please, please, please, somebody in the ether, just even if it's like a weird, you know what I want? I want, I want an I want a voicemail that describes what you think the bumpy glass is, but in a really strange voice, so I can't tell who it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:51

Oh. I feel like I feel like we're asking for just something that we wish we'll we'll want to wish that we we could take back.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:59

I don't think so because zombie chicken clucks, that competition was wild and I loved it. Oh. We got so many.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:06

Sometimes it was painful.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:07

That's the point. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:10

It's a it's like Schottenfreud.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:12

Children, the children ones were so cute.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:14

My turn, my turn.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:17

Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you. See you next time.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:21

Yeah. The end is nay is nay. The end is nay. Eat some hay. Don't die. Bye bye.