Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman
January 2005
Quirk Books
384 pages
Horror / Pandemic / Body Horror
I received a copy of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes to review and was extremely pleased because this is a book I was very excited about. Being a fan of Clay McLeod Chapman’s work so far I believe I will purchase a copy eventually as this book will get a re-read.
The tone of the book was a surprise; I enjoyed the first half much better than the second, I’d not expected an experimental approach with newscasts and podcasts or social media mixed in, nor had I expected a first-person experience. The quasi multi-media was very enjoyable and immersive, however I think I would have enjoyed parts of this book better if written in a traditional third person omniscient point of view as I craved a ‘normal’ novel afterward. Aside from technical aspects, I enjoyed the subject immensely.
I found this book all at once unsettling, entertaining, hilarious, depressing and thoroughly well written. We start the book out following Noah heading cross-country to check in on his elderly parents. They’ve turned into right-wing converts thanks to 24-hour news channels and have become almost literally glued to their televisions. I know many people that were sucked into the right wing news machine – even if only a little or for a short time – so it really hit home.
There is a really indispensable list of references at the back of this book – there is nothing I like more than a fiction book with a list of references. The shortcut here is to listen to the podcast Conspirituality. If you ever want to wallow in the anti-conspiracy thinking that countered the no-mask pro-convoy bleach drinkers of 2020 to 2023 then go back and listen to all the pandemic-centric episodes of that podcast. That show was the lifeline that the characters in this book needed.
From the jacket copy:
“Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it.
Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.
But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart—literally—as people succumb
to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn—but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?”
So, Noah drives from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia to check on his parents; Insanity ensues. I’ve not read on-page heart-wrenching insanity like this in quite some time. It was grotesque and relatable; the descriptions of foodstuffs and the disarray of a house that was his childhood home is something that no one wants to see. If you have watched destruction from weather events on television or shows like Hoarders or have lived through that yourself then you have a glimpse into what our main character walks into in his previously normal family home.
Then we start to realize we are in a full-fledged zero day rager pandemic of the kind of anger the world has never seen… but we have been so worried would happen. This is very similar to David Moody’s Hater or 28 Days Later with anger levels of The Purge mixed with some Cronenberg level transmogrification.
Had we followed Noah through the entire book I think I would have liked it better but we do branch off into other family members to follow them during this zero-day hellscape. It’s not a zombie book by any means but if you enjoy the pandemic nature of a zero-day story where the world we woke up in is not the world we knew yesterday. then you will enjoy Wake Up and Open Your Eyes.
If you found yourself galvanized with disbelief at the crackpot opinions and fake news shouted from mountain tops during the pandemic, then you will enjoy Wake Up and Open Your Eyes.
If you, like I, find it super creepy that while you’re reading this book you hear ads on podcasts where hosts literally say Wake Up and Open Your Eyes; this book may freak you out on a whole other level.
If you gulped kale smoothies, binging guru-tastic YouTube livestreams and sweating it out with hot yoga for a year like it was a fever dream, you may enjoy Wake Up and Open Your Eyes.
If you are ready for the Great Reawakening, you just need to Wake Up and Open Your Eyes.
Thank you to Quirk Books for the digital review copy!