“…And then I woke up.” These are the words that nearly every reader dreads to hear at the end of a story, suggesting as they do that the characters and situations the reader has just gotten attached to have been nothing more than a dream. But how about at the start of the story? Malcolm Devlin’s latest horror novel, And Then I Woke Up, explores the struggles of characters who have just awakened from an imagined reality and must reckon with their new understanding of the world and the consequences of actions they committed while living under a lie. The book, which came out last month, is the most unique take on a zombie apocalypse I have ever read and has a particularly poignant message for our times.
Spence was once one of the infected—not infected with any recognizable disease or condition, but with a narrative. On the day that the world ended, Spence and many others like him experienced a collective delusion that they were suddenly living through a zombie apocalypse. This belief distorted their perception of the world around them: they saw undead, shambling corpses where their friends and loved ones had stood a moment before and were simply unable to perceive anything that would contradict the story that had begun to form in their minds. Led by charismatic “believers” whose fervor helped to drive and define the narrative, bands of survivors fought violently against these seeming zombies—in reality, attacking and killing innocent people. After years of living under this delusion and committing what he afterwards learned were atrocious crimes against his fellow human beings, Spence was cured—he broke free of the narrative and was able to see the world as it truly was again. Spence now lives at Ironside, a facility where the cured can find acceptance and start to process the destabilizing shifts in reality they’ve experienced and the horrible things they now realize they’ve done. Spence finds comfort in this environment, especially in the group therapy sessions, where each resident has the opportunity to tell and retell their story without judgment. But not everyone is happy about being cured. When Leila, Ironside’s newest resident, fails to make progress in her recovery, Spence reaches out to connect with her and eventually comes to understand why someone might be happier living a lie than accepting the truth.
Spence is a fascinating example of what is, in my mind, the most terrifying kind of unreliable narrator. He cannot trust his own perception or memories from the time he was infected. When reflecting on his past, Spence must sift through his memories, guessing at what parts were delusions fed to him by the narrative and trying to imagine what must really have happened that he couldn’t perceive at the time. Even after becoming cured, Spence’s trust in his own mind is shaken. He can’t help wondering whether his life at Ironside is just another narrative he’s created for himself. Philosophers and horror writers alike can attest that there’s real terror in the subjective experience of reality—how can you ever know what’s real? And if you can’t, how do you give anything in your life meaning?
Along with these epistemological meditations, And Then I Woke Up also seems to offer a pointed social commentary on today’s political climate. The novel plays with the concepts of “fake news,” conspiracy theories, and even seemingly innocuous viral controversies over differences in perception—making explicit reference to the blue-and-black vs white-and-gold dress phenomenon from a few years ago. News items become irreconcilably divisive and large swathes of the country are, in this case, living in completely different realities. The bands of “survivors” in Devlin’s novel are reminiscent of, for example, Pizzagate adherents who fervently believe they are fighting virtuously against a large-scale, government-facilitated child sex-trafficking ring. But Devlin also explores with sympathy why the certainty of a conspiracy might be more appealing than the messiness of the truth. And the novel suggests unique approaches for how to break individuals out of these false narratives without causing further violence.
If you like your zombie apocalypses with a side of deep, thought-provoking philosophy and ethics, I highly recommend picking up And Then I Woke Up! You can find it on shelves now at your favorite local retailer or buy it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments!