#Titanuary ‘Survivor Song’ by Paul Tremblay

About the book…

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.

Published by Titan in 2020, Paul Tremblay’s ‘Survivor Song’ has an eerie sense of foreshadowing when reading it in covid-times, a virus spread from infected animals to humans which makes them into zombie-esque creatures.

A couple of years ago, the notion of a world-wide sense of fear, repeated lockdowns, and scenes of unforgettable horror on the news , all add a layer of desperate sadness, for this reader, even thought the only people foaming at the mouth are the anti-vaxxers.

I was in there from the start, the sense of this being an epistolary novel being told, piecemeal, alternating between Natalie and Rams gives a sense of connection with both the female leads. You are introduced to Natalie , late in pregnancy, awaiting her husband , Paul’s, return from what should have been at worst, an annoying supermarket trip. The queues, bad tempers and so forth are what Natalie is imagining. What Paul experiences, however, is far worse.

It must be some kind of alchemy that I can become teary eyed whilst reading the initial scenes of what happens when Paul returns home and we get our first glimpses of the infected humans.

Natalie becomes your priority, her baby is not only her focus it is also ours, as readers, because it represents hope. And the future potential of a surviving baby from a bitten parent.

From Ram’s perspective, her personal and professional identities are clashing in the worst possible way and it becomes a race against time to save what remains of her friend , before it is too late.

And so a journey fraught with peril and danger begins, and you are  both completely immersed and invested in their survival.

I am in awe of how many emotions can be wrung from you whilst reading one of Paul’s novels-it never feels like you are being cynically manipulated into false emotions, it really exemplifies a writer who is a master of his art.

This novel is an odyssey, a voyage of survival, two women at the edge of a crumbling society who may just have the key to keeping things going. And offering hope.

I worked in a hospital through the pandemic and the very real, and palpable sense of rising fear clashing with your professional responsibilities towards patients who were possibly as scared as you yet looking at you for reassurance and support is not an easy path to navigate. Walking down empty hospital corridors, seeing the army in the canteen, having a news blackout on communication, going home and shouting at your family not to go near you till you stripped and put your entire scrubs, outdoor clothes, shoes and under things into a bag, anti- bacc-ing your entire body and praying you did not bring this home to your loved ones was a theme which was way too close to home.

It’s all depicted so realistically, the sense of danger, fear, emotions all over ridden by the need to do the right thing and keep calm when inside you are screaming, the feeling of hopelessness and loss are so pertinent. And what redeems it all is hope. It’s the little things which keep you going, the relationships you maintain with your friends , all of it just the beating heart of this novel. The idea of zombies, a creature which does not respond to logic, reasoning or any negotiations is so relatable. There are people walking amongst us completely oblivious of the massive issues going on, all around the world, the highlighted inequality of wealth and lack of perception of overriding privelege are so neatly encapsulate. Those who have would take, rip, tear and destroy without any real understanding of why. 

This is what makes Paul Tremblay such a phenomenal artist, his depictions of humanity in all its forms (and out of them) are spot on.

About the author…

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of The Pallbearers Club (coming 2022), Survivor Song, Growing Things, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland.

His essays and short fiction have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.

Links-http://www.paultremblay.net/

Twitter @paulgtremblay @TitanBooks