Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay
I would like to thank Lydia from Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan
Published – 7/7
Price - £8.99 paperback £4.99 Kindle eBook
When it happens, it happens quickly.
New England is locked down, a strict curfew the only way to stem the wildfire spread of a rabies-like virus. The hospitals cannot cope with the infected, as the pathogen's ferociously quick incubation period overwhelms the state. The veneer of civilisation is breaking down as people live in fear of everyone around them. Staying inside is the only way to keep safe.
But paediatrician Ramola Sherman can t stay safe, when her friend Natalie calls her husband is dead, she's eight months pregnant, and she's been bitten. She is thrust into a desperate race to bring Natalie and her unborn child to a hospital, to try and save both their lives.
Their once familiar home has becoming a violent and strange place, twisted in to a barely recognisable landscape. What should have been a simple, joyous journey becomes a brutal trial.
Horror is usually felt to be the weird pushing into the ordered world we are living in bringing with it chaos. Every now and then through the weird magic of publishing a book that was written months or even years before today arrives in a way to really capture the zeitgeist. And 2020 has been already pretty much a horror story in the making so far. Reading Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay I got actual shivers of recognition that the world I NOW live in rang so familiar and true and yet this book makes things even worse.
The United States is being touched by a strange virulent disease. Initially spread by animals it has crossed into humans. It presents itself as a fast-acting version of rabies. Where usually symptoms take days to appear this version transforms a human being in only a few hours from their normal personality into an unpredictable violent person who will want to bite you to pass the virus on. Natalie is heavily pregnant and awaiting her husband to arrive back from the store where panic-buying and queues are the norm as the state moves into lockdown. But just as the shopping arrives, they are attacked by an infected stranger – Paul and the attacker are soon dead while Natalie is bitten. She calls one of her oldest friends Ramola a paediatrician who is about to start emergency shifts at a hospital in crisis. Ramola knows the power of the disease that her friend has been exposed to and so they start a trip across town to hospital and are about to find out how dangerous the world has become.
I suspect all of us will soon find the early world Tremblay describes as chillingly familiar. From panic buys to doctors complaining of a lack of PPE and even conspiracy theorists saying this is all deep state activity it is almost like the last few months on steroids. I have been laughingly saying all future disaster tales will be judged by 2020 – this tale hits the mark perfectly. Some readers may not yet feel this is a good time to re-experience the early days of lockdown. But crucially this is an excellent horror story and that is powerfully accomplished that if you can get to it you’re in for a dark treat of storytelling.
Right at the heart of it all are the two friends known as Rams and Nats to each other. Natalie is foul mouthed, sarcastic, and funny – a lover of YA dystopias. Rams is a British-born quite organised and level-headed yet fiercely loyal friend. You can see how both deeply care about each other and yet get plunged into such a horrible situation. Knowing the potential risks makes Ramola go far beyond her usual professional boundaries. Despite it all their conversations together are often funny, warm, and enjoyable – you’ll care for these two women alone in a very very strange world. Making more poignant are voicemail recordings Nats decide to make for her unborn child just in case she can’t get to the medicine she needs – this reveals a lot more going on behind the brusque exterior she normally presents and really makes us invested in the duo’s fate.
Driving the horror is the pacing. The story starts with the attack on Natalie and Paul and then we are running really only through a few hours as the friends race to get Natalie the treatment she needs. The pace is relentless, and every pit stop along the way presents a new challenge be it officialdom, the scared or the infected. Tremblay has created that familiar weirdness of normally busy streets suddenly empty but here lurk dangers. The infected (despite what Nats and others claim) are not zombies – they can have higher function, use tools and machines but all are dangerous. There is a huge atmosphere of things watching (human and other) from the side lines and shadows deciding when is the best time to attack. There is never a moment to rest and in fact things just increasingly worsen leading to a memorable and heart wrenching finale as the duo make a last desperate bid for freedom.
If you can set aside a nervousness about the resemblance to current events you’ll find this an expertly crafted horror story. It brilliantly captures friendship, love and loss in an eerie and dangerous world where the future is not certain. It could easily have been just a gory familiar tale of apocalypse but the humanity of many of the characters we meet in dangerous situations is what makes this standout. I ended up reading this in pretty much one sitting it was that compulsive so one I highly recommend.
