Zombie (novel)

Last updated
Zombie
Zombie (Oates novel - cover art).jpg
First edition cover art
Author Joyce Carol Oates
Cover artistLeonard Telesca
LanguageEnglish
Genre Fiction, Horror, Thriller
Published1995 (Dutton)
Pages181 pp
ISBN 0-525-94045-6
OCLC 32168426
813/.54 20
LC Class PS3565.A8 Z43 1995
Preceded byWhat I Lived For 
Followed by We Were the Mulvaneys  
Zombie The Play adapation program cover.tif

Zombie is a 1995 horror novel by American writer Joyce Carol Oates, which explores the mind of a serial killer. It was based on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Contents

Dahmer stated in an interview with Stone Phillips, "The only motive that there ever was to completely control a person, a person I found physically attractive, and keep them with me as long as possible, even if it meant keeping a part of them." [1]

Plot

The protagonist, Quentin P, seeks to create a zombie out of an unsuspecting young man. He intends to find a perfect young male companion and re-wire his brain, thereby turning the victim into a mindless sex slave. [2] His several attempts at creating a zombie, by doing improvised surgery on the victim's brain, all end in failure, however, as the men he abducts, rapes and tortures all die at his hands. By the end of the novel, he has begun to enjoy killing for its own sake.

Adding to his frustrations is his increasingly suspicious family, particularly his father.

Awards

The book won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. [3]

The play adaptation starring Bill Connington and directed by Tom Caruso won awards, including the FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Solo Show. [4]

Play Adaptation

The solo play was first performed at the New York International Fringe Festival, and then opened at the Studio Theatre on Theater Row, on West 42nd Street in New York City. [5] The play was later produced live at John Jay College in New York City. The play starred Bill Connington as Quentin P., and was directed by Thomas Caruso. Joyce Carole Oates was present for a pre-show panel discussion alongside forensic psychologists and serial killer experts from John Jay College. She signed copies of her novel Zombie and A Fair Maiden . [6] The play was also performed at Burien Actors Theatre outside of Seattle via a live Zoom performance. [7] The play was also adapted into a short film. [8] All of the versions were performed by Bill Connington.

The play adaption of Zombie received notable reviews from The New York Times , [9] The New York Sun, [10] and Variety, [11] The New York Post, [12] and The Village Voice. [13]

Film Adaptation

The same team that created the play adaptation of Zombie, created a 19-minute short film [14] that premiered in 2010 and was screened at 21 film festivals, including Cleveland International Film Festival, and Boston International Film Festival. The film won 5 awards including "Best Short Film (Horror)" at the Washington DC Independent Film Festival, "Best Director" "Best Short Dramatic Screenplay" and "Best Supporting Actor" at the Terror Film Festival in Philadelphia, and "Best First Time Director" at the California Film Awards.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quentin Tarantino</span> American filmmaker (born 1963)

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American filmmaker. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue often with profanity, and references to popular culture. During Tarantino's career, his films have built a cult following, as well as critical and commercial success; he has been considered "the single most influential director of his generation". He is the recipient of two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and one Palme d'Or.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Jason Leigh</span> American actress (born 1962)

Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American actress. She began her career on television during the 1970s before making her film breakthrough in the teen film Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). She received critical praise for her performances in Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Miami Blues (1990), Backdraft (1991), Single White Female (1992), and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce Carol Oates</span> American author (born 1938)

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin McDonagh</span> British-Irish filmmaker and playwright (born 1970)

Martin Faranan McDonagh is a British-Irish playwright and filmmaker. He is known for his absurdist dark humour which often challenges the modern theatre aesthetic. He has won numerous accolades including an Academy Award, six BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Olivier Awards in addition to five nominations for Tony Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Jenkins</span> American actor (born 1947)

Richard Dale Jenkins is an American actor. He is well known for his portrayal of deceased patriarch Nathaniel Fisher on the HBO funeral drama series Six Feet Under (2001–2005). He began his career in theater at the Trinity Repertory Company and made his film debut in 1974. He has worked steadily in film and television since the 1980s, mostly in supporting roles. His eclectic body of work includes such films as The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Little Nikita (1988), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), The Mudge Boy (2003), Burn After Reading (2008), Step Brothers (2008), Let Me In (2010), Jack Reacher (2012), The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Bone Tomahawk (2015), The Last Shift (2020), The Humans (2021), and Nightmare Alley (2021).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Williams (author)</span> Australian writer

Sean Llewellyn Williams is an Australian author of science fiction who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. Several of his books have been New York Times best-sellers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derf Backderf</span> American cartoonist

John Backderf, also known as Derf or Derf Backderf, is an American cartoonist. He is most famous for his graphic novels, especially My Friend Dahmer, the international bestseller which won an Angoulême Prize, and earlier for his comic strip The City, which appeared in a number of alternative newspapers from 1990 to 2014. In 2006 Derf won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for cartooning. Backderf has been based in Cleveland, Ohio, for much of his career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lindsay-Abaire</span> American writer

David Lindsay-Abaire is an American playwright, lyricist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play Rabbit Hole, which also earned several Tony Award nominations. Lindsay-Abaire won both the 2023 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical and Tony Award for Best Original Score for the musical adaptation of his play Kimberly Akimbo.

<i>Dahmer</i> (film) 2002 film by David Jacobson

Dahmer is a 2002 American horror drama film written and directed by David Jacobson, and co-written by David Birke. A limited theatrical release, it is based on the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer, who killed seventeen young men and boys in Bath, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991. It stars Jeremy Renner as Dahmer, and co-stars Artel Great, Matt Newton, Dion Basco and Bruce Davison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toronto After Dark Film Festival</span> Film festival

Toronto After Dark Film Festival is a showcase of horror, sci-fi, action and cult cinema held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival premieres a diverse selection of feature-length and short-films from around the world including new works from Asia, Europe and North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Brake</span> Welsh actor (born 1964)

Richard Colin Brake is a Welsh actor. Following his film debut in Death Machine (1994), Brake had a supporting role as Joe Chill in Batman Begins (2005). He subsequently appeared in numerous horror films such as Doom (2005), Hannibal Rising (2007), Mandy (2018), and Barbarian (2022), as well as his first lead role in Perfect Skin (2018). A frequent collaborator of Rob Zombie, Brake has appeared in four of his films: Halloween II (2009), 31 (2016), 3 from Hell (2019), and The Munsters (2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pasek and Paul</span> American songwriting duo

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known together as Pasek and Paul, are an American songwriting duo and composing team for musical theater, films and television. Their theater works include A Christmas Story, Dogfight, Edges, Dear Evan Hansen, and James and the Giant Peach. Their original songs have been featured in Only Murders in the Building, Sesame Street, Welcome to Wrexham, Harlem, Smash and in the films Aladdin, Trolls, Pink: All I Know So Far, La La Land, for which they won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "City of Stars", and The Greatest Showman. Their work on the original musical Dear Evan Hansen has received widespread critical acclaim and earned them the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical and Best Original Score. In 2022, they won the Tony Award for Best Musical for serving as producers for the Broadway production of Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop.

<i>The Gravediggers Daughter</i> 2007 novel by Joyce Carol Oates

The Gravedigger's Daughter is a 2007 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. It is her 36th published novel. The novel was based on the life of Oates's grandmother, whose father, a gravedigger settled in rural America, injured his wife, threatened his daughter, and then committed suicide. Oates explained that she decided to write about her family only after her parents died, adding that her "family history was filled with pockets of silence. I had to do a lot of imagining."

Andrew Swant is an American filmmaker best known for William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, and What What in the Butt.

<i>My Friend Dahmer</i> Graphic novel and memoir about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, by the artist Derf

My Friend Dahmer is a 2012 graphic novel and memoir by artist John "Derf" Backderf about his teenage friendship with Jeffrey Dahmer, who later became a serial killer. The book evolved from a 24-page, self-published version by Backderf in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samantha Lee Howe</span> British writer

Samantha Lee Howe is a British novellist and screenwriter. She writes horror and fantasy under the pen name Sam Stone. She is best known for her 2020 psychological thriller novel The Stranger in Our Bed, published by HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter. Howe is the commissioning editor of Telos Publishing imprint Telos Moonrise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Cassidy</span> American actor

Nat Cassidy is an American actor, writer, and musician based out of New York City, New York, United States. He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and attended Horizon High School, after which he received his BFA at the University of Arizona.

<i>My Friend Dahmer</i> (film) 2017 film

My Friend Dahmer is a 2017 American biographical psychological drama film written and directed by Marc Meyers about American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The film is based on the 2012 graphic novel of the same name by cartoonist John "Derf" Backderf, who had been friends with Dahmer in high school in the 1970s, until the time Dahmer began his killing spree in 1978. The film stars Ross Lynch as Dahmer, Alex Wolff as Derf, Dallas Roberts as Jeffrey's father, and Anne Heche as Jeffrey's mother.

Killer Joe is a play written by Tracy Letts in 1993.

Artel J. Great also known as Artel Kayàru, is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Rodney in the 2002 film Dahmer.

References

  1. Phillips, Stone. "Jeffrey Dahmer Interview - Extended Footage". Interview. Archived from the original on 2021-12-19. Retrieved November 27, 2008.
  2. Johnson, Greg (1998). Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates. New York City: Dutton. p. 201.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on November 10, 2006. Retrieved October 23, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Boston Book Review's Fisk Fiction Prize
  4. Hetrick, Adam (25 August 2008). "Fringe Festival Announces Overall Excellence Award Winners". Playbill. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  5. Gates, Anita (2009-02-22). "The Pervert in the Basement". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  6. Peter, Thomas (10 March 2010). "Connington Brings Oates' Zombie to Life in NYC Starting March 10". Playbill. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  7. Schaefer, Scott (2020-05-26). "Burien Actors Theatre's Shelter-In-Place Season continues with 'Zombie' this weekend". The B-Town (Burien) Blog. Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  8. King, Loren (2011-04-10). "Taking the short route reaps reward". Boston.com. Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  9. Gates, Anita (2009-02-22). "The Pervert in the Basement". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  10. "'Zombie': Burrowing Into an Unbeautiful Mind". The New York Sun. 21 August 2008. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  11. Thielman, Sam (2009-02-23). "Zombie". Variety. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  12. "WITTY KILLER TO KILLER WIT". 2008-08-18. Retrieved 2023-10-30.
  13. Various (2008-08-12). "Fringe Festival 2008 Reviews!". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2023-10-30.
  14. "zombie". zombie. Retrieved 2023-11-28.