The Reapers are the Angels
Alden Bell
Reviewed by Ian Jamieson
The best Zombie movies are the ones where the Zombies (Meatskins in this
novel) are peripheral to the story.
Joshua Gaylord, under the pseudonym of Alden Bell, has used them to point
at human morality in a post-apocalyptic age. His heroine Temple, an
illiterate precocious and dangerous fifteen- year old, was born into this
world and knows no other. After killing a man she is forced into leaving a
human sanctuary with the dead man's brother on her trail vowing vengeance.
Temple heads out West, picking up on the way a deaf-mute man child, as a,
to her, penance for her past misdeeds. Kerouac has nothing on this road
novel as she visits a family frozen in time, and a murderous gang of
hillbillies. Along the way she reminisces on God and nature.
Cleaving her way across America, there is violence aplenty. She is
occasionally caught by her pursuer, and a kind of twisted father/daughter
relationship builds up.
Blood, brutal, frightening and at times charming this is an excellent read.
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