President Robert K. Outcome isn’t your typical commander-in-chief. He’s a salad-eating, Apple Watch-wearing megalomaniac with a fixation on blood oranges and tracking his calories. For the public, he smiles for the cameras and signs bills into law. But behind the polished façade lies a mind overloaded by delusions of grandeur, hate, and uncontrollable desires for sheer domination. POTUS claims to be related to Hitler on his mother’s side and believes he’s destined to not just lead America, but to own it. At his side is Ed, a loyal sycophant who parrots POTUS’s every thought despite dealing with his own dark cravings.
When a “Top Secret” intelligence report lands on his desk, POTUS grins: the nation is infected, not by a disease, but by a population categorized as “Zombies,” described brusquely as “dead from the neck up.” He sees the metaphor as validation of his belief that the American people are ripe for manipulation, readily and easily controlled through spectacle, fear, and brute force. And if they’re already brain-dead, why should he not treat them accordingly?
POTUS doubles down: more propaganda, more mind games, and more brutal social engineering. As he gleefully stokes racial division and fantasizes about turning the clock back to America’s ugliest days, Mr. President slowly morphs into a predator with, unfortunately, a global platform and unchecked power. Eventually, POTUS is no longer hiding his crudeness. He’s flaunting it. Will anyone see behind POTUS’s theatrical bravado before the country goes down irreparably, or will America keep applauding its own funeral, one executive order at a time?
ZOMBIE by Clifford Benjamin isn’t satire with a wink, it’s a blunt-force caricature of power gone rancid that swings for the jugular and lands its hit. Benjamin’s writing is sharp, vivid and evocative. He has a knack for evoking the uncanny by creating a sense of unease through his words, presenting something familiar and unsettling in a natural, fluid manner. Part psychological grotesque, part absurdist nightmare, ZOMBIE is perfect for fans of politically charged books like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America or Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. ZOMBIE is not a cautionary tale; it’s a reflection of what already slithers under the surface.
