A new zombie novel by a Harvard Medical School professor has struck a nerve with no less a cult figure than George A. Romero, director of “Night of the Living Dead.” He promises the book will leave readers “chuckling . . . and worrying.”

In Dr. Steven C. Schlozman’s “The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse” (Grand Central), one-third of the world’s population has perished, and most of the rest are infected. Martial law has been imposed. Zombie movies, which bear an eerie similarity to media coverage of the plague, have been banned. The bulk of the novel is drawn from the handwritten notes of researcher Dr. Stanley Blum, with drawings (by the real-life Andrea Sparacio) of zombie brains and dissections.

It will be a homecoming of sorts for Schlozman when he appears at 6 p.m. March 28 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline. Two years ago he introduced “Night of the Living Dead” as part of the theater’s Science on the Screen series. That’s when he decided to write a zombie novel. Free tickets are available at Brookline Booksmith.

PEN awards In “The Madonnas of Echo Park” (Free Press) by Brando Skyhorse, a cleaning woman, a bus driver, and other Mexican immigrants struggle to find a balance between the need to assimilate and the desire to cling to their homeland. As the undocumented day laborer Hector says on the first page, “[T]he more you lose, the more American you can become.” In(Free Press) by Brando Skyhorse, a cleaning woman, a bus driver, and other Mexican immigrants struggle to find a balance between the need to assimilate and the desire to cling to their homeland. As the undocumented day laborer Hector says on the first page, “[T]he more you lose, the more American you can become.”

Skyhorse’s novel, set in the Los Angeles neighborhood where he grew up, is the winner of the 2011 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction. Ernest Hemingway’s son Patrick will present the award during a ceremony at 3 p.m. Sunday at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson will be the keynote speaker.

Also to be recognized are the fiction, poetry, and nonfiction winners of the 2011 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, given to New England authors or books with a New England setting. Like the title character of his coming-of-age novel “The Chester Chronicles” (Permanent), Cape Cod resident Kermit Moyer was an Army brat, the perennial new kid in town. Connecticut lawyer Charles Douthat’s “Blue for Oceans” (New Haven Review) is a volume of poems touching on the stages of life in an American family. Emerson College professor Jerald Walker charts his trajectory from the poor neighborhoods of Chicago to the halls of academia in the nonfiction winner, “Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption’’ (Bantam).

Coming out ■ “Before We Went Wireless: David Edward Hughes FRS: His Life, Inventions and Discoveries (1829-1900) by Ivor Hughes and David Ellis Evans (Images From the Past) by Ivor Hughes and David Ellis Evans (Images From the Past)

■ “Unfamiliar Fishes” by Sarah Vowell (Riverhead)

■ “A Lesson in Secrets” by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)

Pick of the week Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Conn., recommends “The Other Life” by Ellen Meister (Putnam): “Quinn, whose artistic mother took her own life, has the ability to travel between two parallel worlds via hidden portals. One world is a safe, suburban existence with her husband and their young son on Long Island. The other is a dramatic life in New York City, a life in which her mother is still very much alive. The premise of these portals may seem strange, but Meister makes it work very well.’’ Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Conn., recommendsby Ellen Meister (Putnam): “Quinn, whose artistic mother took her own life, has the ability to travel between two parallel worlds via hidden portals. One world is a safe, suburban existence with her husband and their young son on Long Island. The other is a dramatic life in New York City, a life in which her mother is still very much alive. The premise of these portals may seem strange, but Meister makes it work very well.’’

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.

Correction: Because of an editing error, an incorrect time was listed for an event this weekend. Marilynne Robinson will be joined by Joshua Ferris and Ha Jin on Saturday at 2 p.m. to talk about the experience of winning the Hemingway/PEN. To register, visit www.jfklibrary.org.

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