Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
July 7th 2020
by William Morrow
It is a function of being on the west coast but Paul Tremblay snuck up on me. I know he was hanging around Necon, and publishing short stories here and there for a long time so while New York publishing might see him as an overnight sensation. I think that is a discredit to the years of hard work that Paul Tremblay has put in. I was interested in this book from the first time I saw it sitting on the shelf at Mysterious Galaxies. I don't remember if I was more surprised to see a hardcover horror release from an author I didn't know or the fact that the title was quoting a Bad Religion song.
Tremblay had my attention. While hardcover horror releases from new voices are becoming a thing again it was a rare thing at the time. The success of A Head Full of Ghosts is huge part of the reason why. Tremblay won the Bram Stoker award for Cabin at the End of the World but he did something far more important. He gave horror a vital new voice. Ghosts and Cabin were important at the time because they were books that you thought about long after you closed the books.
The success of Josh Malerman and Paul Tremblay comes at an important time and has helped other younger powerful voices like Jeremy Robert Johnson, Silvia Morena Garcia, Molly Tanzer, and others to find homes in mainstream publishing, to get reviews in major markets with horror. I hope readers of this book looking for deeper dives will be writing these names down and might I add Cody Goodfellow and Brian Evenson to the list.
Not to put too much weight and hype on Survivor Song, but Tremblay did that to himself by kicking major ass with each of his novels. The genius of this man's work is that he keeps tackling trope-tastic standards in horror and elevating them. The Exorcism novel, the home invasion, and now the zombie pandemic story. The thing is he takes these tropes and makes masterpieces. These novels are kinda like going into a hole in the wall greasy spoon dinner and getting a top-shelf sandwich.
There are two ways to do an end of the world story, you have go global with a million characters or you can focus tightly on a small group and limited point of view. It is the difference between the George Pal War of the Worlds from the 50s that featured generals and scientists and the Spielberg version of the story that focused only on one family.
That tight camera is what we have here. Think of the Stand as a prog-rock song recorded with a full symphony. Survivor Song is a great song with one power cord and a pillow in the kick drum in comparison. You are going to dance to both but I will take the second option at this point for a one really important reason.
The epic multiple character pandemic has been done many times and to great effect even recently with Chuck Windig's The Wanderers. M.R. Carey brought some fresh invention to the genre with Girl with All the Gifts but the real strength of Survivor Song is the tight focus on two characters - Natalie and Doctor Ramola Sherman.
Their friendship is at the heart of this novel. I can't say if he nailed the young friendship between two women, but it seemed very real to me. What Tremblay excels in is taking stories some writers would tell over 800 pages and solidly telling it in 300 pages.
It is clear if you get to the end of the book and read the acknowledgments what question was the germ of the idea here. From that nugget, Tremblay sets up a tension and a ticking clock that drives the action. It is sorta hard talking about this without spoilers although it is all said on the dust jacket I am glad I read nothing going in.
Natalie is very pregnant when she is a bit in the opening chapter. Her best friend is a doctor who knows they have a short time before the infection takes her friend. They have a short time to get medical help and save the baby.
That simple set-up gives Tremblay a canvas to explore how the women support and love each other, the subtle nature of how pandemic in this case based on rabies expands quickly, and this becomes timely because 240 pages in we get a glimpse at the partisan reaction that PT wisely saw coming. That last part was more of the narrative in Cabin but it is here too.
Stephen King said he had trouble putting down this book and that is by design. The chapters are longer but that is because the narrative doesn't give us or the characters much room to breathe. This was the goal of one of my novels so enjoyed seeing how Tremblay keep the tension and pace up. King also compared this novel to the work of Richard Matheson, I can see that in the sense that every time I Am Legend feels like it is giving us a rest a fresh narrative wave sweeps the reader away.
Survivor Song is a scary rollercoaster of emotions and if you allow yourself to fall for the spell of it you will see it is also a tear-jerker. The wall between the scares and the tears is so thin that is what makes this book special.
Tremblay had my attention. While hardcover horror releases from new voices are becoming a thing again it was a rare thing at the time. The success of A Head Full of Ghosts is huge part of the reason why. Tremblay won the Bram Stoker award for Cabin at the End of the World but he did something far more important. He gave horror a vital new voice. Ghosts and Cabin were important at the time because they were books that you thought about long after you closed the books.
The success of Josh Malerman and Paul Tremblay comes at an important time and has helped other younger powerful voices like Jeremy Robert Johnson, Silvia Morena Garcia, Molly Tanzer, and others to find homes in mainstream publishing, to get reviews in major markets with horror. I hope readers of this book looking for deeper dives will be writing these names down and might I add Cody Goodfellow and Brian Evenson to the list.
Not to put too much weight and hype on Survivor Song, but Tremblay did that to himself by kicking major ass with each of his novels. The genius of this man's work is that he keeps tackling trope-tastic standards in horror and elevating them. The Exorcism novel, the home invasion, and now the zombie pandemic story. The thing is he takes these tropes and makes masterpieces. These novels are kinda like going into a hole in the wall greasy spoon dinner and getting a top-shelf sandwich.
There are two ways to do an end of the world story, you have go global with a million characters or you can focus tightly on a small group and limited point of view. It is the difference between the George Pal War of the Worlds from the 50s that featured generals and scientists and the Spielberg version of the story that focused only on one family.
That tight camera is what we have here. Think of the Stand as a prog-rock song recorded with a full symphony. Survivor Song is a great song with one power cord and a pillow in the kick drum in comparison. You are going to dance to both but I will take the second option at this point for a one really important reason.
The epic multiple character pandemic has been done many times and to great effect even recently with Chuck Windig's The Wanderers. M.R. Carey brought some fresh invention to the genre with Girl with All the Gifts but the real strength of Survivor Song is the tight focus on two characters - Natalie and Doctor Ramola Sherman.
Their friendship is at the heart of this novel. I can't say if he nailed the young friendship between two women, but it seemed very real to me. What Tremblay excels in is taking stories some writers would tell over 800 pages and solidly telling it in 300 pages.
It is clear if you get to the end of the book and read the acknowledgments what question was the germ of the idea here. From that nugget, Tremblay sets up a tension and a ticking clock that drives the action. It is sorta hard talking about this without spoilers although it is all said on the dust jacket I am glad I read nothing going in.
Natalie is very pregnant when she is a bit in the opening chapter. Her best friend is a doctor who knows they have a short time before the infection takes her friend. They have a short time to get medical help and save the baby.
That simple set-up gives Tremblay a canvas to explore how the women support and love each other, the subtle nature of how pandemic in this case based on rabies expands quickly, and this becomes timely because 240 pages in we get a glimpse at the partisan reaction that PT wisely saw coming. That last part was more of the narrative in Cabin but it is here too.
Stephen King said he had trouble putting down this book and that is by design. The chapters are longer but that is because the narrative doesn't give us or the characters much room to breathe. This was the goal of one of my novels so enjoyed seeing how Tremblay keep the tension and pace up. King also compared this novel to the work of Richard Matheson, I can see that in the sense that every time I Am Legend feels like it is giving us a rest a fresh narrative wave sweeps the reader away.
Survivor Song is a scary rollercoaster of emotions and if you allow yourself to fall for the spell of it you will see it is also a tear-jerker. The wall between the scares and the tears is so thin that is what makes this book special.
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