Pariah »

Bob Fingerman is the award-winning creator of such critically acclaimed graphic novels as Beg the Question, White Like She, and Recess Pieces.  In his novel, Bottomfeeder, Fingerman tossed away the typical gothic and romantic trappings of the vampire genre in favor of portraying the down-to-earth story of a working class Queens-bred vampire. In Recess Pieces, Fingerman whipped up a bloody maelstrom of adorable moppets and the living dead set within the confines of a school. In the uneasy romantic roman à clef Beg the Question he presented anxious young love in the streets of Brooklyn long before gentrification. His most recent graphic novel is From the Ashes, a “speculative memoir” set in the post-apocalyptic ruins of New York City. He will have a short story in the eagerly anticipated zombie anthology The Living Dead 2. He lives in New York City with his wife, Michele.

A frightening, darkly comedic look at people surviving a zombie onslaught, from award-winning comics sensation and novelist Bob Fingerman.

A global plague has nearly vanquished mankind; the citizenry of New York City is no exception. Eight million zombies. Shoulder to shoulder. Walking the streets, looking for their next meal of human flesh. The residents of an Upper East Side walkup have joined forces to keep themselves safe, the pageant of walking rot outside their windows a constant reminder of the their foreseeable fate. Trapped in the safety of their building, the tenants find themselves at each others’ throats. When they spy a lone teenage girl who walks unharmed among the undead, impervious, their world opens up.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

When a zombie pandemic sweeps the land, a group of survivors hide out in an Upper East Side apartment building. As food supplies dwindle tensions rise, and their only salvation appears in the form of Mona, a mysterious girl who repels the zombies. Though Mona brings food to the survivors and a new sense of possibility, they wonder why she's impervious to the zombie hordes and endeavor to discover her secret. But their decision to put it to the test could shatter the safe, careful world they've built for themselves. Fingerman's latest is a spectacular entre in the zombie genre, largely due to his focus not on the undead but on the living, investigating our humanity and how easily we can turn on each other. But what truly distinguishes Pariah from other worthwhile entries is its humor in the face of bleak and extremely disturbing events (the sociopathic jock, Eddie, for instance, enjoys fishing for zombies in a manner that will turn readers' stomachs). The lack of resolution is unsettling, but what could be resolved in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by the undead? Readers should shamble to the store for this one.
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