Handling the Undead

When the power supply goes haywire all over Stockholm and people everywhere are struck by blinding headaches, things seem strange enough. But soon after, in morgues and cemeteries throughout the city, the dead start to wake. And things really get weird-because the newly undead are not as they were in life.

With wry humour and compassion, Lindqvist illuminates what the return of the dead might really mean to those who loved them: Mahler, alight with hope that his little grandson has been returned; David and his son Marcus, devastated by the loss of their adored Eva, and aghast at what she has become; Elvy, convinced this mass resurrection heralds the End of Days (and desperately hoping her late husband isn't back to stay); the government, which can't work out what to do with its newly restored citizens.

Equal parts family drama, social satire, piercing tragedy and disquisition on mortality, Handling the Undead is a zombie novel utterly unlike any other.