Zone One discussion

Join us on Thursday, October 13, at 5 p.m. Eastern/2 p.m. Pacific for a live video chat with author Colson Whitehead. We'll be discussing Whitehead's new book Zone One.

q What inspired you to start writing the novel?

Is the Zombie genre running out of ideas?

Thanks for joining us everyone. We'll be starting shortly. If you have a question for Colson Whitehead, please feel free to ask it now.

Also, if the player doesn't work for you, try clicking play twice. That seems to do the trick.

q Was writing this novel a different experience from writing your previous ones, because of the genre/zombie element?

Q I wondered, too, if you could talk a little bit about sentence-making, since your prose is so terrific...

q Each of your books tacks in a different direction, blessedly. Do you do this intentionally, or do your whims naturally carry you to something different than what you've done before?

Sure we experienced the zombie apocalypse. It was called the Tea Party. (Sorry, could not resist.)

I wondered if you could talk about how talk about the landscape of New York in the book

Thomas Disch wrote an (infamous) essay saying that Sci-Fi (and related genres) should be understood as a type of children's literature. Now that you've written a genre novel, does his essay seem any more or less true?

q do you think people ask questions to which they really care to know the answers, or that people feel obligated to ask questions and end up asking the same sort of question over and over again?

q and, what's your favorite pizza topping combo?

I am so envious of advance copies right now....

Me too, Harrison Brace. Me too.

I LOVE this answer, by the way.

Can't wait to read it. I've stayed away from zombie books but like the twist and love Colson's books. Love your books too, Cecil.

Q Sag Harbor was my favorite read, will there be more books of the autobiographical genre.

Maybe Whitehead and Romero could get together on an Elevator Inspector film. Spark a new trend.

Me too. You know I really was hoping for the elevator operator trend. Though there was the episode of the Simpsons where they had Law and Order: Elevator Inspectors..

No way!

Sorry, should have given a better summary of it! But thanks for the reply.

A sly nod to "Intuitionist" in any sort of TV show would earn my undying affection.

Harrison, where can that essay be found?

Damn Colson, how about a "spoiler alert" before you drop vital pizza Zone One info! Geez!

Q: your sense of humour is so cool and subversive- how hard is it to capture your humour into your writing?

q There was a lot of talk about Sag Harbor being a "post black" novel. A zombie novel, I suppose, is often a "post human" novel. Not having read Zone One yet, hard to know if there might be any kind of connection there, but wondering if you might have any thought about it, or about Zombie genre and identity politics.

except, as with 9/11, a little time passes and we go back to finding things to dislike about 'other' people, of course.

q the zombie genre seems to spark both fan fiction and parodies. How do/would you feel if Zone One was used this way?

If any of y'all haven't read the Grantland poker piece...it's excellent: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6...

Thanks, Randall.

q What did you read this summer?

sure thing! Occurred to me it might not have crossed the paths of those not also "into" sports.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD is the best!!!

what are you drinking?

q How did becoming an author change your life?

Thank you all for the questions. For those who missed the chat, I will have a recorded version up shortly.

A recording of the chat is up now, for those who missed it.

q: What authors, current and/or past, do you read for pleasure?