Review: Sleazeburgers in Paradise
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 12, 2014
"She was hundreds of years too old for this s***."That right there, is the funniest single line in the distinguished history of zombie literature.PARADISE ROT is about zombies. Also about vampires, advertising people (same dif), gun runners, gay baristas, talking Chihuahuas and necrophiliacs. Also about weird people. But at heart, it's about people. Dealing with apocalyptic weirdness at a posh Caribbean resort and trying to stake out (pun intended) a moral compass point in the midst of mass homicide. To a Seventies pop soundtrack. It's Jimmy Buffett and Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard and Don Draper taking turns whacking Anne Rice with a cricket bat.Larry Weiner has created a well-crafted, fast-paced comic thriller of pancreas-rupturing hilarity, loaded with heart, colored with sharp cultural observations and dry-rubbed in the spices of folklore and history. And populated by a gang of glib misfits you'll come to love — Kyle the bipolar Mad Men burnout; Cate, the sort-of zombie with a soft spot for emotionally infantilized men; Jimmy Dank, the erudite Ivy Leaguer pretending to be a Rastomon; Oscar, the PTSD-addled ex-Marine with a fondness for blowing s*** up; Dog the half-paralyzed undead talking Chihuahua; and many others.PARADISE ROT is the perfect beach read. Or would be if it didn't get you to thinking who — or what — might be eyeing you as a happy-hour slider. Savor over a Moscow Mule and live, or unlive, with whatever happens.