When you think of zombies, you generally picture decaying monsters with one instinct, and one instinct only: brains.  They don't know why they want them or what to do with them until they get them, but an animalistic force is driving them.  Author and professor Robin Becker reimagines the zombie genre with her first published novel, Brains: A Zombie Memoir.  As its title suggests, Brains is told from the point of view of smarmy, freshly-turned professor Jack Barnes.  Through some sort of genetic mutation or natural selection, some zombies are able to maintain various aspects of their humanity.  In Barnes's case, he maintains reasoned thought, even though he cannot speak. I chatted last week with Becker about turning zombie fiction on its decaying head. Hit the jump to find out what she had to say.

Why Brains as your first novel?  What inspired the book?

It's actually my first published novel.  I have two others that are more literary, more concerned with psychological realism.  I got this idea a while ago, around 2004.   I was really into zombies.  I was watching a lot of zombie movies.  Max Brooks's Zombie Survival Guide had come out around that time, but other than that, there wasn't really a lot of zombie literature.  There was definitely nothing from the perspective of the zombie.  I was sympathetic to the zombie.  I thought, why not tell the zombie's story?  Does the zombie want something besides brains?  Comfort, companionship, love?  It developed from that.  And I wanted to try my hand at genre fiction.  Not only do I like zombie movies, but I like reading genre fiction.

What are some of your favorites from the zombie sub-genre?

I love all the Romero zombie movies, of course.  I really liked Fido.  And I like all the really bad ones, like Z-grade movies: Dead and Breakfast is a really funny one.  As far as novels, I like pretty much every zombie novel I have read.  Breathers (by S.G. Browne) and the Monster Island series by David Wellington.  I also like southern gothic, like Flannery O'Connor.  She's not specifically horror, but she's horrific.  I like Stephen King and Joe Hill.

You do seem to have your finger on the pop culture pulse.  Brains is laden with pop culture references.

I consider myself a pop culture junkie, and  I wanted to use that knowledge.  The professor in Brains is actually kind of modeled on the professor in Don DeLillo's White Noise.  It's a send-up of academia.  This character writes papers deconstructing the meaning of a cereal box.  It's not really that character, just inspired by.  I thought that the tie between a zombie's undead brain and a professor's pretentious one would be funny.

I wanted to slap him at several points.

Oh, he's a jerk!

What draws you to zombies?

I like their tenacity.  They are very goal-oriented.  They are single minded.  You just can't stop them.  I kind of felt the same way when I was trying to get published!  You face so much rejection, but you just have to get up and keep going.

I feel sympathetic to them because they are inarticulate.  They have so much passion for brains, but they can't express it, except by shuffling and mumbling.

Which side do you prefer: the fast zombies or the slow zombies?

Slow zombies!  I think there is a place for fast zombies, but they are not really zombies.  Like in 28 Days Later, those infected with the Rage virus act zombie-like, but they are technically not zombies because they are not reanimated corpses.  Though I did like that 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.  They had fast zombies.

Despite that, it was a surprisingly good remake.

I thought so, too.

What do you think is behind the sudden surge of zombie literature in the past few years?

Maybe we have given up on vampires?  I don't know.  People have always been interested in the supernatural.  I think it just hit a natural tipping point.  For years, zombies were only on film.  When I first started thinking about this book, I read a few of the more scholarly works on zombies -- tracing them from their voodoo roots to films.  A lot of writers were claiming that zombies couldn't make it in literature because they are an inherently visual form.  But I think a lot of authors decided to change that.  We can make our zombies think and feel and love!

Zombie stories are known for their strong socio-political views.  Do you have one in Brains or is it just a fun romp?

I think it has one!  I hope readers catch it!  Jack Barnes, the main character, is searching for equality for zombies.  He is searching for the meaning of life, and the meaning of un-life.  He decides that there needs to be a compromise so that zombies and humans can live together. Finally, he accepts his zombie nature -- that he likes brains.  He's not even going to deny himself eating brains. 

Anything coming up for you?

I am actually toying with the idea of a sequel to Brains.  It ends at a place where Jack's story isn't entirely finished.  At the end he rides off into the sunset -- literally -- and who knows what happens after that?  I think I want to know.

Theoretically, what happens to the zombies when they devour all the human brains? Do they just wander around, hungry, until the sun explodes?

I guess so.  I don't know that zombies would ever be able to eat all the humans.  And hopefully, if there is a smart zombie like Jack, he can realize that they need to keep some humans alive, like in The Matrix. 

Was there a determining factor as to which zombies maintained part of their humanity, and how much of it they retained?

It's the luck of the draw.  The same thing that makes a human being have a higher IQ than another, or makes one person sexy and another just attractive.