Zombie00 by Brad Gooch (2000)

"It all started at the Everhart Museum."

This sentence begins the 2000 novel Zombie00 by Kingston native Brad Gooch, who recently released the criticially acclaimed Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor.

Zombie00 is an avant garde novel about a strange young man from the fictional Truckstown, PA which, according to Gooch, is "located near Scranton." A visit to a mummy exhibition and voodoo chamber at the Everhart Museum inspires him to move to New York City, acquire the name Zombie, and ponder the issues of dominance and submission in his journey of "zombification." The novel has heavy themes of homoeroticism and sadomasochism.

The first three pages include many local references, in which "Zombie" journeys with his parents from Trucktown to the Everhart Museum, located in the nearby city of Scranton:

"It all started at the Everhart Museum. The way to the museum was blocked by a huge ugly fountain."

The second paragraph of the novel reads:

"The museum rose before us in a park called Nay Aug Park that never seemed quite right."

Page three decribes "Zombie" seeing the mummy at the museum for the first time:

"It was wrapped in bandages. I was amazed that Scranton, Pennsylvania was important enough to be entrusted with one of the ancient Egyptian dead. That made me feel a lot better about myself, since Truckstown was located near Scranton."

To place a hold on Zombie00, click here.