Book Review: Eden by Tony Monchinski
Review by Elaine Lamkin
A school principal, a dangerous convict, an Irish immigrant, a Dominican gang-banger, a biker, a woman who trades sex to stay alive, several families. And hundreds of thousands of zombies. On a few streets in the New York City borough of Queens, a few hundred survivors of some cataclysmic event that has turned everyone they know into either zombies or the very dead, have erected a wall and are attempting to carry on some semblance of normalcy. This sanctuary is named Eden.
Eden, by Tony Monchinski, is an interesting addition to the current onslaught of zombie novels. It opens with a bang as Harris, the former school principal, and his girlfriend, Julie, are attacked in their home by a group of zombies. Because someone INSIDE Eden unlocked one of the doors to the outside and LET the undead in. This event begins the only linear plotline in the novel – what is going to happen to Harris and Julie and WHO is the culprit behind the sabotage? All of the other stories are flashbacks about how this disparate group of survivors managed to come together as well as stories of people caught in Manhattan when “the event” occurred and how they were or were not coping. Several characters inside Eden leave the compound, thinking there is something more out there and then they are never heard from again, rather leaving the reader hanging. But perhaps a sequel will explain their fates. There are several expeditions outside the safety of Eden to gather supplies (and à la Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, the survivors use the sewer systems to gain entry to grocery stores, DVD stores, etc.). Some of these expeditions are successful. Others are not and gorehounds will rejoice in the graphic zombie violence Monchinski has strewn throughout the book. Some nasty stuff!!
There are several secondary characters who break up the violence and mayhem in their chapters: Mickey, the TV/movie buff who can talk the talk when it comes to horror movies: debates about The Blob, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Friday the 13th, The Day of the Triffids, even, ferchrissakes, The Dukes of Hazzard make for fun reading. Bear, the tattooed former biker, is not what readers would expect when he arrives at Eden. And then there is Diaz, the Dominican pothead, and Thompson, the teenaged…well, we are not sure what to think of Thompson until the end of the novel. Other characters met along the route to Eden are equally interesting: the Richardson family, who take Harris in for a few days, and…well, things just don’t go well for them. Dom, the novelty song fan who has moved his little world onto the roof of his building as his wife, Lenore, has turned and is, therefore, locked in the cellar.Young John Turner who, trying to impress one of the few women his age in Eden, attempts to rescue a cat and her kittens who are on the other side of the wall.
For fans of armaments, Monchinski has filled the book with every type of gun, flamethrower, grenade, etc. that one could wish for. He has done his homework. And the zombies – Bear, on one of the reconnaissance missions, finds a journal someone has left behind which offers a little insight in to what might have happened and what the author of the journal has seen. The names given to different types of zombies: bookers (the fast ones), shamblers (the Romero type), howlers who scream and seemingly rage over what they have become and zombies who have retained some of their human intelligence and are therefore all the more dangerous. These zombies are referred to as “the brains”. As with Romero’s mythology, one can only “kill” a zombie by damage to the brain, be it via a gun, a machete, whathaveyou. But unlike Romero zombies, these will eat anything – cats, dogs, any animal they can get their hands on. And, as the traditional mythology goes, if you are bitten, well, you are royally fucked.
I thoroughly enjoyed Eden BUT there are two problems I had, one of which was really hard to get past. The first thing I thought unnecessary was Monchinski’s opening where he talks about receiving the manuscript for Eden from someone who “LOVES…zombie films”. Someone named “Tommy Arlin”. And Monchinsky, in this intro, writes of how he continues to meet Arlin all over the world. I’m not sure what the author was “going for” with this introduction which puts the entire story of Eden into the mind and hands of some (in my opinion) fictional character. If anyone has their own theory, by all means I would love to hear it.
Now, for the BIGGEST problem I had with this book. There were SO many typos, misspellings, awkward sentences, etc. that it was hard for me to read the book and not be distracted. I stuck Post-It flags everytime I encountered a page with something grammatically wrong with it (and actually ran out of Post-It flags, there were so many mistakes) and, well, it seems like almost every page has something misspelled or grammatically incorrect in it. Some examples: when Mickey is discussing John Carpenter’s The Thing with some of the gang, one sentence reads, “That last seen of MacCreedy and the other guy…”. “MacCreedy”??? “Seen”??? Or when Harris and Buddy are crossing the river from Manhattan: “…Buddy stood atop the cabin at the steering birth.” “Birth”?? Hoo boy. “Shopenhauer’s wet dream…” instead of “Schopenhauer”, “Snuffalufagus” instead of Snuffelupagus, “Sasqwach” instead of “Sasquatch” and on and on and on. It almost became a game: Find the Typo, but I WAS invested in the plot of the book so I pushed onward.
I love Permuted Press and don’t know if this was a one-off editorial snafu but IF there was a copy editor or proofreader, someone fell asleep at the wheel. I would gladly volunteer my services to Permuted Press as a proofreader if they are shorthanded. A few typos, unsightly but it happens. THIS many screwups and something is just wrong.
However, if you can get by all of the copy problems, there IS an exciting story in Eden and who knows, if enough of your friends read it, maybe you can come up with a drinking game using all of the typos.
Nom…nom…nom…BRAAIINS!!!
Buy on Amazon
Popularity: 1% [?]
[ ‹‹ Dead by Dawn (2008) Slither (2006) ›› ]
2006 2007 2008 2009 awesome 80s bad movies Best of bloody book review boring brutal campy creepy disturbing Fatally Yours film festival fun ghosts gore haunted horror comedy Horror Literature humorous independent insanity interview low-budget madness monsters murders News psychological release info revenge sequel serial killer short film slasher supernatural unique vampires violent Women in Horror Worst of Zombies