The Reawakening

Q & A for The Reawakening with award winning author Joseph Souza.

Question: You’ve written crime fiction before moving into horror. Why an apocalyptic Living Dead trilogy?

JS: With all the craziness going on in the world the idea for an apocalyptic trilogy hit me like a ton of bricks. The idea for The Reawakening came to me rather quickly and I wrote the first book in less than two months. It’s a riveting tale filled with suspense, human drama and mindboggling horror.

Question: What makes your novel that much different from every other zombie novel out there?

JS: I love reading all the various zombie novels on the market. Mine however takes a different approach than the others. The living dead in my novels are not merely flesh-eaters, but avatars sent to earth for a concrete reason. For a brief moment before they turn into cannibals, the reawakened are peace-loving creatures sent to warn the living of the dangers facing them.

Question: So it is a religious novel?

JS: No way! The novel pits evolution versus spirituality in a very unique and horrifying way. It leaves the reader questioning the motives of the dead and the entity responsible for sending them here.

Question: It sounds very interesting and intelligent. But will it whet the zombie lover’s appetite for blood and gore?

JS: Absolutely, it will. There’s lots of blood, flesh eating and walking dead in The Reawakening. Not only will this novel appeal to readers on an intellectual and spiritual level, but it also delivers the requisite shot of blood and guts that every great novel of the genre requires. I think it will shock and entertain the reader on many different ways.

Question: We haven’t talked about your characters. Who in your novel stands out the most?

JS:  Dar in my mind is the star of this novel. In the early chapters she is a bitter, depressed young teen, but by the end she’s changed every aspect of her personality. I think by the end of the novel many people will compare her to the main character in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Only Dar carries an ax.

Question: What do you hope people come away with after reading this novel?

JS: The novel is told in the first person of Thomas Swiftley, a famous novelist and the father of Dar. I hope that people get so caught up in Thomas’s articulate telling of his story that they can’t put this book down. I want them to consider the problems facing our planet and to consider the spiritual and evolutionary questions posed to us. I want people to ask themselves what they would do in the event of a global crisis and how they would deal with the people around them. I’m hoping that people consider the underlying reasons why the dead in The Reawakening rise up and then scour the earth for human flesh.

Author
Joseph Souza is the author of many award-winning short stories and essays. He graduated from Northeastern University and grew up near Boston. The Reawakening is his debut horror novel and the first in The Reawakening trilogy. He lives near Portland, Maine with his wife and two children and enjoys running, cooking and playing golf when not writing.  Joseph can be contacted at souzajf@hotmail.com. You can also visit his website at www.josephsouza.com.

Podcast Interview: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/zombie-cast-unofficial-guide/id492647899