9. Zombie - Joyce Carol Oates
Award winning book from the very prolific Joyce Carol Oates - an author never scared to go where others fear to tread, Zombie is a highly unpleasant novel to read due to the narrator's raving lunacy. The killer and the narrative of the book is based upon the case of Jeffrey Dahmer who attempted 'brain surgery' upon his victims in order to turn them into sex slave zombies. Of course the narrator in Zombie wants to do something similar and we are exposed to his twisted thinking and raving psychopathy. The narrator - Quentin P - is actively trying to create sex zombies but his results are poor. He sodomises and kills his victims and as his murders increase, he develops a taste for necrophilia and cannibalism. He must also evade the suspicions of his family. Reading Zombie is a sick, yet highly compelling experience courtesy of Joyce Carol Oates. Her prose always flows beautifully and she can make violent and disturbing deeds spring to life on the pages of her books with a clarity and vividness that 95% of writers wish they could do as flawlessly. She is particularly good at getting inside Quentin's head and exposing his psychopathology for the reader. I was disturbed by the book and I am not easily disturbed. Serial killing in the book just seems so mundane and every day with Quentin P - there is a casualness which gets under your skin. Not an easy book to get hold of either. I don't think there was much interest in another print!