Ah, zombies. How far are we all from being zombies, anyway? I often find myself wondering that very thing when I get a vapid hankering for some meat, or when I find myself mindlessly consuming something. Sometimes I feel dull and listless, or as if someone could hack one of my arms off with an axe and I would just lurch around the room, spraying gore, and wonder what was for lunch. Yes, I am far too familiar with these kinds of feelings. These zombie feelings. They’re all around us. You know: everything in its own season and all that?
So let’s talk. You all know that I’m a monster and that being a monster, I’m like a monster expert? Well, the secret that nobody wants you to know is that while there IS a tooth fairy, there are no lurching, flesh-eating, brains-craving zombies. And no there is no debate in the monster world over whether or not fast-moving zombies are more scary than the slow type. Real zombies are poor horrible victims of Voodoo priests who were driven mad by being buried alive with huge spiders, like the poor guy in Serpent and the Rainbow. This book kind of walks a line between the two.
Enter Way of the Barefoot Zombie by Jaspar Bark. The book bills itself as a satire about capitalism, the rich and powerful, paperback gurus, and zombies. The villain of the novel, Doc Papa, hosts a billionaires club where evil capitalists learn to discard their souls and act like zombies. Our heroes infiltrate this seminar with the goal of freeing the zombies.
I’ve got get one thing off my chest right now. Being someone who has read enough about the history of Haiti to know about Francois Duvalier, I was unable to read a book with a character named Doc Papa without being pissed at the author. Like this bold choice of character names, Barefoot Zombie is naive and heavy-handed. It’s also all over the map. All in one book we have: the pain of growing distant from a parent, rampant consumerism symbolized, a perverted self-help seminar for rich capitalists, the senseless and cruel murdering of environmental activists, poorly aimed teenage angst, anger at step parents, an unfortunate character with Asperger’s, good and evil portrayed as lovers, evil capitalists tearing the aforementioned activists apart with their bare hands, a psychologically-neatly-stitched up necrophiliac (he kissed his mother on the lips, at her WAKE), a guilt-wracked Voodoo priestess, some Voodoo lore, and of course, zombies of the brain-eating kind.
(Wow – how’s that for a movie subtitle? “He kissed his mother on the lips – at her WAKE!” I like it.)
What was I saying? Oh yes. I think the book needed some focus. Barefoot Zombie lurches in the direction of being a slasher novel, then veers off into teenage angst, then over to political relevance, and back to gore island, but ends up being a coming-of-age story. I was able to make peace with the book when I turned off my brain and enjoyed it as trashy zombie fiction. This book is trashy zombie fiction. If you’re looking to read a piece of trashy zombie fiction with a lot of exposed brains and intestines and people getting their eyeballs popped out, you can’t go too far off the mark with Way of the Barefoot Zombie.
Yes one thing that Barefoot Zombie definitely succeeds at is over-the-top gore. The body count is high, and we have a real contender for the “worst possible way to die” of the year. Thus we’ve bumped up the Creepy Factor.
Creepy Factor: 3 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 2 out of 5
Final result: Trashy zombie fiction from a publisher who appears to be serious about finding new authors and publishing outrageous horror fiction. While it is a very imaginative book, I was left wanting more focus. Recommended for die-hard fans of Zombies and Voodoo who are looking for a trashy read with plenty of gore.
Way of the Barefoot Zombie by Jasper Bark – Abaddon Books – 2009
Way of the Barefoot Zombie
Everything Zombie
Many thanks to Abaddon Books for sending me this book to review. (See my disclosure policy.) Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. Hopefully next time I review a nice juicy horror novel with loads of Weird Erotic Tension. I’m working on it! See you next time!
RSS Feed
