Zulus by Percival Everett. Sag Harbor. 1990. Permanent Press. 0932966977. 245 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Bruce McGowin. Cover illustration by Robert Wade.
DESCRIPTION - ZULUS is a difficult book to describe, for it is unlike any other novel one is likely to encounter, both for substance and style. It blends realism and surrealism; its very starkness creates the richest of images, and it features a most unlikely heroine who undergoes a bizarre transformation. It has comic moments in unlikely situations, and ambitiously attempts to grapple with the most serious issues before us today, though it takes place in the far future. ZULUS is set amidst the eerie landscape and society that has emerged years after the occurrence of a thermonuclear war, where Alice Achitophel, a 300-pound government clerk and misfit, has a well-kept secret: she is, perhaps, the last woman alive who is not sterile. As such, she poses a threat to the government and is coveted by rebels. Her plight, her experiences as an outcast, and her unusual love affair are not only engrossing in their own right, but serve to convey themes that Percival Everett has dwelt on in his other work: isolation, alienation, and a search for familial integrity. Ultimately, however, Alice's adventures raise the most fundamental issue of all: is the continuation of mankind - with all of his culture and all of his craziness - compatible with the survival of the planet Earth and the other life forms that inhabit it?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Percival Everett (born December 22, 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He is best known for his novels Erasure (2001), I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009), and The Trees (2021), which was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Erasure was adapted as the film American Fiction (2023), written and directed by Cord Jefferson, starring Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, and Leslie Uggams.
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