FEBRUARY -- Zone One 🧟🏙️🚧 (Celebrating Black History Month)
Details
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (2011)
Mark Spitz, a civilian sweeper assigned to reclaim Manhattan after a catastrophic pandemic, spends his days moving block by block through the remaining infected zones, clearing out the last remnants of the outbreak so society can attempt to begin again.
As he navigates abandoned streets, stalled skyscrapers, and the echoes of his former life, the work becomes both routine and reckoning. Over the course of several days, memories surface and the fragile boundary between what was lost and what remains begins to blur, revealing how difficult it is to rebuild a world that refuses to stay buried.
Colson Whitehead is an acclaimed American author known for blending literary craft with sharp social insight across genres. His work often reimagines history and speculative scenarios to explore race, memory, power, and American identity, earning him multiple major awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes. He’s widely admired for taking familiar forms and quietly bending them into something stranger, smarter, and more unsettling.
Themes to Keep in Mind While Reading (Non-Spoiler)
- Memory as Survival
How do memories shape the way characters experience the present, and when do they help survival versus quietly undermine it? - Routine After Catastrophe
What does the return of routines and procedures suggest about how people adapt to life after the world has fundamentally changed? - Rebuilding vs. Repeating
Does the effort to rebuild point toward meaningful change, or does it risk recreating the same structures and assumptions that existed before?
Before the event …
- Read the book. 🤩
- Keep your RSVP up-to-date. If you can't make it out, update your RSVP at least 24 hours beforehand. Attendance will be taken and "No Show"s marked.
At the event …
- We’re a friendly welcoming bunch and we love new folks! 😍
- Please purchase something (even if just a soda) while you’re at the restaurant. They’re running a business but being super awesome by giving us a space to meet for free. Also, please tip our servers. We’re a big bunch to wrangle.
2026 Austin Horror Book Club Selections
Click here to see this year's books!