Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl wage a campaign for the rights of the reanimated. Did I mention that boy and girl are zombies?
Yes, S. G. Browne’s Breathers is a romantic zombie comedy, or a “rom-zom-com” according to the back cover blurb. Deliciously (no pun intended) different from the usual flesh-eating gore fests of zombie literature, Breathers is the story of Andy Warner, a victim of a recent car crash that leaves his wife dead, his child orphaned and himself in a precarious undead status. Zombies are the latest group to be reviled and discriminated against by the majority, which in this case are the living or “Breathers”. Zombies are treated as little more than wild animals, as they are constantly tracked by both government officials and the SPCA. They cannot vote, own a home, hold a job or even use the Internet.
Growing increasingly dissatisfied with his distant parents, his Botoxed therapist and his second class citizenship, Andy begins attending Undead Anonymous meetings. It is then that Andy meets others who he can really identify with, including Rita, a beautiful zombie with a penchant for eating her cosmetics (for the formaldehyde). Along with Rita, Andy teams up with Jerry--a giggly, porn-obsessed zombie, Ray--a rugged, survivalist zombie who makes a special brand of jerky--and the rest of the undead support group in an fight to reclaim the rights they had in their lives as Breathers.
Surprisingly bittersweet and touching, Breathers is about one man’s quest to find his place in a world that doesn’t want him. The comedy is dark, the scenes are at times graphic, but the story itself is timeless.
-Lesley Daley
Reference Librarian
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