DREDGING UP GREATNESS

I would never have read “Dredging Up Memories” if I’d known it was a zombie novel. That said, it’s NOT a zombie novel. At least, not in the traditional manner depicted on television and in print. It is so much more.

The main character’s name, Walker, cracks me up. He’s a “Walker,” as if the author is paying homage to “The Walking Dead” television series (they call zombies “walkers” in the TV series). But he’s not like any character in any zombie invasion I’ve ever seen. He’s more like the United Nations employee Gerry Lane played by Brad Pit in “World War Z,” a humanized and realistic character. In Author Jeff Brown’s story, Walker is an action hero humanized, tamed and brought down to Earth. He’s been neutered from all the Ash Williams type characters (The Evil Dead) and given a conscience in a world of zombies. Let’s introduce some drama, shall we? The character is alone in his hometown, feeling the need to lay the “rotters” to rest one final time.

You can read Jeff Brown’s reasons for writing the tale at the end of the book. But I’m going to give my spin on it and compare this book to Stephen King’s “Misery” for one very good reason: there’s basically only one character through most of the book, and when a ‘partner’ shows up toward the end (Hetch), then there’s only two characters.

In King’s “Misery” there are two main characters, too. Although the emphasis is on the mind of Paul Sheldon, Annie Wilkes comes in to ‘rescue’ him and help guide him through rewriting his last novel to a particularly fond series she favors.

In Jeff Brown’s story, he does pretty much the same thing with just two characters. Some might argue that there are more characters than that, but he dredges up those characters through memories the same exact way that Paul Sheldon does in King’s “Misery.” Those snapshots are memories of only one character, and the thoughts and ideas are those of only one character.

King and Brown have achieved the same results.

Some might argue that King did a better job, but I would argue that Brown did the same exact job seamlessly, realistically and accurately for the most part. There are some stylistic differences and plot twists I would have done differently, but that is aesthetic differences between one writer and another (and writing is just a hobby for me, while Brown actually puts books out).

There was only one typo in the book which is phenomenal since I find typos in bestselling author’s work all the time. This typo is an easy fix and easily missed because the author used the word “break” for the “brake” of a car. Whoever helped edit this book with Jeff Brown… Well, they all need a congratulatory party for themselves. There should be editor awards on the cleanest novels, and this should be one of them.

Critique 1: the story doesn’t start with a bang, nor do the chapters end with cliff hangers. For example, if you read anything of Author Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), he can’t end any chapter without some sort of cliff hanger. Author Jeff Brown doesn’t insult the reader’s intelligence using this ‘gimmick’. Some preconditioned readers’ minds won’t like that. But Stephen King often uses the same technique, simply starting the story normally without writing gimmicks, the same as Author Jeff Brown does. So, if you need writing gimmicks and tricks-of-the-trade to keep you reading, then you’ve been brainwashed by the publishing industry, and you’ll miss out on an awesome story as told by Author Jeff Brown.

Critique 2: The main character comes across a group of church people and—like so many times in Hollywood—the church people are crazy. I’ve felt that zombie stories are overdone, but even more overdone are the portrayal of crazy Christians. They’re usually portrayed as two-dimensional caricatures, and this is evident in “Dredging Up Memories.” You have the narcistic Preacher White who is shouting Scriptures and trying to whip his flock up into a frenzy, but inwardly he’s a ravenous and power-hungry wolf loving his grasp of power over his brainwashed flock. Then there’s the flock themselves, not quite as zealous as the preacher, but willing to die for ‘his cause’ no matter what. And, as always, there’s one person in the group who is kind of the outsider who tends to stand alone or help the protagonist. In this case he’s called “Hairy Ears” (since the main character doesn’t know his name).

There are styles and aesthetics and plot differences I might have liked better, but what makes Author Jeff Brown’s book stand out is here is a little guy, not well known amongst the super elite mega-authors, and he sets a bloody stake in the sand and seals off his own real estate among the zombie genre. And he writes it HIS way. The author does it in such a way as making the entire tale more believable, because the more humanity you pump into any character, the more believable that story becomes. In that sense, this story becomes the first of its kind in its genre, a kind of character-driven “zombie drama.” That’s right, it becomes something that’s never existed before, bringing humanity into the zombie series, and letting instead of letting zombies drive the plot (or the need to kill the zombies drive the plot), the plot is character-driven.

Even in King’s “Misery” the plot is driven by his mad caretaker, and the main character has absolutely no control over the situation. In Author Jeff Brown’s story, the ENTIRE novel is character driven. He is NOT controlled by the zombies, nor is the story controlled by the zombies, nor the plot. The only time in which the zombies begin to control anything is when they get inside Walker’s head toward the end and he begins to self-destruct. Then “a savior is born,” and his name is Hetch. They tend to save each other in the story.

I can see Hetch and Walker in the future, a zombie-fighting duo, an ‘us against the world’ attitude, humanized characters working to lay to rest those souls trapped in rotting flesh. Dredging up more memories? It would give the author time to play around with some of the ‘dark areas’ of the Hank Walker’s story.

I’m going to have to give this body of work the highest rating possible simply because it does what Stephen King could not do in “Misery.” Although both King and Author Jeff Brown completely humanized their characters and made them realistic, Brown allowed his character to control the pace of the story instead of letting the ‘monsters’ do it for him. And that is why Hank Walker has become the strongest and most realistic character in any zombie story I’ve ever read. Although he weeps, although he has low points and gets depressed and drunk, he’s still strong enough of a character to control, to overpower and dominate the world of zombies. And that, alongside the character development of Hank Walker, is why this book simply must receive highest marks.