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Summary
Summary
A propulsive and chillingly prescient novel of suspense and terror from the Bram Stoker award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts.
"Absolutely riveting." -- Stephen King
In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less. Those infected quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they inevitably succumb. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying, and hysteria has taken hold. To try to limit its spread, the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew. But society is breaking down and the government's emergency protocols are faltering.
Dr. Ramola "Rams" Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-thirties, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, a friend who is eight months pregnant. Natalie's husband has been killed--viciously attacked by an infected neighbor--and in a failed attempt to save him, Natalie, too, was bitten. Natalie's only chance of survival is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible to receive a rabies vaccine. The clock is ticking for her and for her unborn child.
Natalie's fight for life becomes a desperate odyssey as she and Rams make their way through a hostile landscape filled with dangers beyond their worst nightmares--terrifying, strange, and sometimes deadly challenges that push them to the brink.
Paul Tremblay once again demonstrates his mastery in this chilling and all-too-plausible novel that will leave readers racing through the pages . . . and shake them to their core.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A highly contagious rabies-like virus that turns its victims into homicidal maniacs drives this standout thriller from Stoker Award winner Tremblay (The Cabin at the End of the World). The state of Massachusetts is under quarantine, hospitals are overwhelmed, and people are panicking as authorities struggle to maintain order. After Natalie Larsen, who's eight months pregnant, is bitten by an infected neighbor in an attack that kills Natalie's husband, her pediatrician friend, Ramola Sherman, attempts to get her to a hospital for a vaccine before it's too late. When this proves unsuccessful, the two women embark on a desperate odyssey across a nightmarish eastern Massachusetts landscape in hope of reaching a safe place to deliver Natalie's baby. Along the way, they're threatened by rabid animals, roving rabies-infected victims, and frightened local militias. Their journey becomes even more hopeless as the first symptoms of Natalie's rabies begin to appear and Ramola must confront a decision she dreads to make. The vividly drawn characters of Ramola and Natalie give the story an uncommon emotional intensity. This is genuinely hard to put down. Agent: Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management. (July)
Guardian Review
The horror genre offers a frame of reference for global pandemic, however unsettling. In the early weeks of the outbreak Contagion leapt to the top of the most-streamed movie lists, Reddit and Twitter were aflame with claims that a Dean Koontz novel had "predicted" Covid-19, and comparisons to Stephen King's 1978 disasterpiece, The Stand, were so frequent that the author himself felt the need to apologise for 2020. If the master of horror is feeling troubled, spare a thought for authors introducing new fictional crises into this uneasy summer. Depending on your appetite for plague fiction, the timing of Paul Tremblay's Survivor Song is either excellent or appalling. In Massachusetts a new strain of rabies has made the jump to human transmission. Symptoms appear within hours of infection, making the infected homicidal and shattering the social infrastructure. In the chaos of the early outbreak we are introduced to the heavily pregnant Natalie, moments before her husband is killed and she herself is bitten. From here we follow Natalie and her paediatrician, Ramola, in their search for medical help. In any other year Survivor Song would be a safely speculative piece of genre fiction: it is Tremblay's riff on the zombie apocalypse, told with formal playfulness and meta-awareness. In 2020, however, the novel seems disturbingly prophetic, with references to "lockdown", the lack of PPE and the efficacy of vaccination. As in reality, the situation is mired in misinformation. Facsimiles of social media posts provide background and context to the virus, while simultaneously revealing the data to be compromised. A scene-setting Facebook conversation runs the gamut of speculation, erroneous facts and conspiracy theory, leaving the reader and protagonist unsure as to the true nature of the threat. Worse still, the crisis is exacerbated by "a president unwilling and woefully unequipped to make the rational science-based decisions necessary". This offhand nugget now seems more terrifying than the novel's rabid killers. Survivor Song is bleak and violent. It embraces the shock and urgh of mainstream horror and has none of the ambiguity of A Head Full of Ghosts or The Cabin at the End of the World, novels that distinguished Tremblay as a vital new voice in the genre. It is also, however, the author's warmest and most humane book to date. Eruptions of violence are answered by moments of poignancy. In one memorable scene, an infected man commits murder and then "sobs as though in recognition of what's broken in him and what he has broken". Max Brooks's Devolution also examines the pressure of isolation during crisis, but it promises a lot more fun. Deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, a modern eco-community is living off-grid. Following the eruption of nearby Mount Rainier, they are cut off entirely from civilisation and at risk of being forgotten in the post-disaster anarchy. And that's when the local Bigfoot tribe attacks. If that sounds like a cheesy premise, then be assured that Devolution is fully aware of its B-movie heritage. Just as Brooks's mega-selling World War Z critiqued the media portrayal of zombies, Devolution deftly incorporates "real-world" history, anecdote and pop culture surrounding Bigfoot as context. It's an attempt to elide the distinction between reality and fiction but, more importantly for any fan of Bigfoot or cryptozoology, it's a referential treat. There's a lot for the uninitiated to enjoy as well. Brooks's take on the eco-community has a DeLillo-esque edge of satire. Tony Durant, the Elon Musk-like leader of the community, is convinced that technology can solve any problem. His wife spouts trite new-age epithets while using an electric light to mimic the sun that shines outside her window. Another member of the group waxes lyrical about Rousseau's ideal state of nature while stockpiling junk food. Brooks details their hypocritical disavowal of capitalism while luxuriating in its spoils. As one character notes: "Those poor bastards didn't want a rural life. They expected an urban life in a rural setting." It's funny and frightening in equal measure when the monsters reveal the true requirements of life in the wild. Again though, in light of current events, Devolution becomes a more disquieting read, and the horror is not necessarily found in the obvious places. Yes, the Bigfoot attacks are well orchestrated and surprisingly violent. The true terror for a post-pandemic reader, however, is in the grounded reality of how victims of disaster can be overlooked and how thin the veneer of civility and technology is revealed to be in the face of grand social disruption. There may seem little incentive to read stories of crisis and vulnerability when so much is at risk in our real lives. However, both novels have hope and resilience at their core: tragedy is tempered by personal and community resurgence. If readers can stomach the journey, then there is solace to be found in these tales of apocalypse.
Kirkus Review
When a virulent and potent form of rabies upends life as we know it in Massachusetts, a pregnant woman and her pediatrician must fight for survival. Tremblay reached rare new highs in the horror genre with the superbly creepy novel The Cabin at the End of the World (2018) and the Twilight Zone--esque story collection Growing Things (2019). Now, in the midst of a real-life health crisis, Tremblay delivers an eerily prophetic story about a mass outbreak of a rage-inducing virus and the havoc that ensues--basically, he's gone full-on Stephen King by way of 28 Days Later. The story opens in a small, woodsy community south of Boston where what seemed like a relatively mild rabies problem has jumped to humans, who are driven to violent rages and overtaken by a compulsion to bite as many other victims as possible to spread the disease before they eventually succumb and die within a short time. One of our protagonists is Natalie, a very pregnant woman whose husband is violently murdered by one of the outbreak victims right before her eyes. Desperate, bitten, and infected herself while also in shock, she reaches out to her pediatrician, Dr. Ramola "Rams" Sherman, to help her get a dose of the rabies vaccine before she has the baby or succumbs to the illness. Now it's a race against time to save Natalie and the baby, all while communities are being ravaged by violence. Meanwhile, the outbreak is exacerbated by "a myopic, sluggish federal bureaucracy further hamstrung by a president unwilling and woefully unequipped to make the rational, science-based decisions necessary." Encounters with well-meaning strangers and near-death escapes are punctuated by Natalie's sweet recorded messages to her unborn child. A cinematic scope, scenarios grounded in the real world, and a breathless pace make this thriller one of the must-read titles of the summer. A prescient, insidious horror novel that takes sheer terror to a whole new level. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Tremblay (The Cabin at the End of the World, 2018) has earned worldwide acclaim because he is able to seamlessly combine reality with speculative elements, and his newest may be his most prescient yet. As a virulent strain of rabies spreads in Massachusetts, hospitals are overrun and society is falling apart. Pediatrician Ramola "Rams" Sherman is called into action when her pregnant best friend, Natalie, flees her home after she is bitten and her husband is attacked and killed by an infected neighbor. Together they embark on a desperate journey to try to save Natalie and her baby. The novel is framed as a folk song, but it is also a song of friendship, love, and hope despite it all. The fast-paced tale is told within a compressed time line, full of dread, violence, panic; and yet, there are also moments of clarity and beauty. Gorgeously written about terrible things, the relatively short Survivor Song is a good choice for fans of pandemic epics like Joe Hill's The Fireman (2016) and novels that probe themes of friendship, family, and social commentary amidst chillingly realistic horror like Gwendolyn Kiste's The Rust Maidens (2018) or Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians (2020).
Library Journal Review
With a rabies-like disease sweeping Massachusetts, causing victims to go mad within the hour and viciously bite others before dying, pediatrician Ramola "Rams" Sherman has one concern: the husband of eight-months-pregnant friend Natalie has just succumbed, and Natalie herself has been bitten. How to protect her unborn child? With a 75,000-copy first printing; billed as a psychological thriller, but note that Tremblay is a Bram Stoker Award winner.