Raising Stony Mayhall by Daryl Gregory

Raising Stony Mayhall by Daryl Gregory

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Bravo. This is the zombie book I didn't know I wanted. It's a grim, slyly funny, philosophical story about a zombie baby found beside the road in alternate history 1968 Iowa, and the women who risk their lives to raise him (raising, get it? No really, I swear, it's actually very cleverly funny). This is a book that draws its political horror in broad dashes, but does its interpersonal work in tight, minute, precise gestures. It's thinking about zombie fiction, but not in that irritating way where it's all did you know none of this makes any scientific sense? But instead in that zombies are a way to think about embodiment, and the persistence and unholy power of consciousness. You can read it as kind of about disability if you want to, but I think that's a little too narrow a lens. Really it's about the mystery of being alive in inexplicable flesh. And that's pretty universal.

It made me laugh a lot, and facepalm, and then, eventually, want to hold someone's hand for a while. There are so many perfect small touches, like how zombies are asexual (but in our protagonist's case, not a-romantic), and how everyone knew the world was going to end, the only question was when. But the big picture emotional push of the book was so good, I really don't need to pick it apart.

And now I really want to know what this Daryl Gregory fellow is going to come out with next.

Highly recommended.




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Paper Towns by John Green

Paper Towns by John Green

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Aggressively charming high school boy shenanigans. It did charm me; these kids are far cleverer, funnier, and sweeter than I recall from that age, but that helps, not hinders. This is a quest book -- the girl has vanished, and the boy has to unpick the clues she left and find her. The best thing about this book is the ways it calls this book on its crap: the point here is that the girl is a cipher to the boy, a blank girl cut-out doll. And how that happens because we have a hard time seeing each other as people, a hard time recognizing that someone is as human as we are. I was going to say 'especially at that age,' but, well. So this book is about how the way we see other people is really about us and not about them, and I liked that.

I understand that Green's other books are also basically the same boy questing after girl story, and I suspect the ones that aren't like this one, thematically, are not going to work nearly so well for me. We'll see.




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