The Reapers are the Angels is a dark book about the end of the world, horrible awfulness, and shitty consequences. Have you heard the Nick Cave song titled The Carny? “No one saw the carny go.” Says the first line. It’s kind of about a murdered horse named Sorrow but kind of not. If you haven’t heard that song, but you’re reading this blog, then you’ve probably seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original. You’ve seen that, right? There’s the scene where the hitchhiker cuts himself. Remember that? Have you read Savage Night by Jim Thompson? If you haven’t done any of these, then your assignment is to stop reading this NOW until you’ve done at least one. I’ll make it easy. Here’s a link to the The Carny on YouTube. These three are examples of dark, awful, shitty, horrific, rotten, base things that a mind might pick at occasionally, but that are probably best left alone. They contain equal parts cruel absurdity and rude meaningfulness.
When I first started The Reapers are the Angels, I groaned inwardly because at first glance the book seemed to be about Buffy the Vampire Slayer except that, instead of vampires, the world is populated with zombies. The protagonist is named Temple, and she is fifteen years old. You discover pretty early in the book that she is an unusually tough fifteen year old, considering that she can decapitate zombies or split their skulls with one stroke of a knife. To me, this ended up requiring a bit more disbelief than I could suspend, but I ended up getting used to the idea. The book is pretty violent, and as you probably expect from a zombie story, is unapologetically gory.
The setting is post-zombie-apocalypse Southern United States. The writing style is informal and has something of a Southern Gothic affectation. So you might think that you’re reading about Br’er Rabbit, or maybe some Flannery O’Connor. This is the second book I’ve read recently where the author has a very pronounced writing style. I liked that about this book. It’s got a flavor. It’s a brave book in that Bell has taken a lot of risks.
People should probably give this book a read, so I’m going to do my best to write about it without big spoilers. We find Temple on a deserted island in Florida. The Earth has been overrun by zombies. Seeing as how there are different kinds of zombies and different zombie infection scenarios, I’ll lay out the basics of zombies in The Reapers:
- The dead rise and walk as long as they haven’t rotted completely away.
- The zombies are the slow variety.
- Killing zombies requires injuring their brains.
- Zombies are hungry for humans, and thus like to bite them.
- People who are bitten by zombies become zombies soon thereafter.
- The zombie apocalypse in question started twenty five years before the start of the book.
- Civilization as we know it ended under the assault and now the world is crawling with zombies.
- Mankind has been reduced to huddling in heavily-guarded compounds, except for some few who roam and can defend themselves.
- The most fun way to kill zombies is with a portable nail gun.
Temple grew up after the apocalypse and knows no other world. She never knew her parents (orphan alert!) and was raised and taught how to fight zombies by someone who wasn’t her uncle. She is haunted by the memory of someone who may or may not have been her brother, and who she doesn’t want to talk or think about. Temple is a wanderer. Not really knowing where she is going, she runs from a man who has sworn to kill her, and decides to deliver a developmentally challenged man to his family in Texas. Along the way, she makes some friends and some enemies, kills some zombies, and opens a can of whoop-ass on a pack of mutants who inject themselves with zombie pituitary distillate. That last part was a lot like a video game.
I know that I keep talking about Nick Cave, but those of you who might have read his novel And the Ass Saw the Angel will notice some similarities between the two:
- Both books are titled after passages in the Bible.
- Both are written in Southern Gothic style.
- The meat and potatoes of both books are the small miracles and black blunderings of an accursed life.
- At worst, both books get mired in the heavy molasses of their own seriousness.
- At best, both books are garish, morbid, dark, mysterious, and emotionally gripping.
Let’s see those numbers:
Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 2 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 4 out of 5
Final result: In The Reapers are the Angels, Alden Bell manages to pull off an ambitious novel. My one main complaint was that I would have found it more believable if Temple had been in her twenties. I’m not kidding around when I say that two chapters in, I was sure that I was going to hate it. But in the end, I thought it was a good book. The Reapers has a compelling and suspenseful plot, emotional depth, plenty of creepy terror, some graphic gore, horrific apocalyptic tableaux, and a girl who had to grow up much too fast.
The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell – Holt Paperbacks – 2010
Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews, and thanks to Henry Holt and Co. for the review copy. See you next time!
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