Breathers by S.G. Browne
Reviewed by Kari Wolfe
Andy has no idea what has just happened. He’s in his parents’ kitchen, melted ice cream all over the floor, and his parents’ chopped up bodies in the freezer with no memory of how they got there. Oh, and did I neglect to tell you that Andy is a zombie?
In S. G. Browne’s tongue-in-cheek dark comedy, Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, zombies are a natural phenomenon. Some come back from the dead; others don’t (such as Andy’s wife who was in the auto accident that killed them both). Zombies are treated like third-class citizens and must abide by the Ten Commandments. No, not those Ten Commandments, but the Undead Commandments:
1. You will not disturb the living.
2. You will not stay out after curfew.
3. You will not commit necrophilia.
4. You will not covet your neighbor’s flesh.
5. You will not dishonor your host guardians.
6. You will not commit acts of civil disobedience.
7. You will not develop online personalities.
8. You will not visit cemeteries during the day.
9. You will not take public transportation.
10. You will not decompose on government property.
(Commandments from the Undead Anonymous website )
As you can see, there’s not much left for a zombie to do.
Andy is relegated to his parents’ wine cellar, stuck watching bad television shows. Once a week, he goes to Undead Anonymous to learn to cope with the realities of being undead as well as to socialize with others in the same condition. But Andy is tired. Tired of watching the same ol’ T.V. night after night, tired of drinking his father’s expensive wines, tired of having to be in by curfew, tired of basically not having a, erm, life.
So he does the obvious thing: he starts his own little protest against the animalistic treatment of zombies. With phrases such as “Zombies Are People Too!” and “Is It Necrophilia If You’re Both Dead?” the zombie rights movement begins to, uh, take on a life of it’s own. Mix in some obvious mistreatment of zombies by some fraternity brothers and we, as Breathers reading this novel, can march along with Andy, protesting for zombie rights, as they did in San Fransisco not too long ago.
Andy is truly a sympathetic character. The treatment that zombies receive from humans is simply appalling. The case for zombie rights is well made, except for one thing: what’s a zombie’s favorite food? You guessed it! Human flesh. So, what’s the happy medium here?
Who gives zombies the right to decide who lives and who dies, regardless of the person being killed?
Should some humans have to give up their rights so that the zombies can have their rights?
Could a process like cloning humans to slaughter for food help enable those zombies to have rights? Or do cloned humans have rights too?
As much as this book is a dark comedy, the philosophical aspect of zombie rights and what those rights would mean to the human race was a fascinating diversion from your average zombie horror.
