Enlarge By Megan Abbott Alden Bell is the pen name of Joshua Gaylord. ABOUT THE BOOK ABOUT THE BOOK The Reapers Are the Angels

By Alden Bell

Holt Paperbacks, 225 pp., $15 It's zombies meets the Southern Gothic tradition in Alden Bell's dark yet luminous novel The Reapers Are the Angels. Temple, the 15-year-old at the center of this ominous tale, was born into a world where "meatskins," the walking dead, are more prolific than the living. Except for photos she sees in old magazines, she is a survivor who can't imagine what life must have been like 25 years ago before the zombies (Bell also refers to them as "slugs") roamed America. Bell doesn't tell us how things came to be or whether the zombie plague has spread across the world. It doesn't matter. It's Temple's life and her immediate surroundings that fascinate us. A loner by nature, Temple carries the weight of intolerable grief for acts she has been forced to commit so she can survive. In an attempt at atonement and redemption, she decides to help Maury, a mentally challenged man, travel across the South to Texas, where he has family who can care for him. Along the way they are pursued by a man set on killing Temple to avenge his brother's death, a slew of zombies and a family of startlingly repulsive mutants. (Readers will be completely unnerved by their lifestyle.) Most fascinating, Bell's zombies provoke compassion and are portrayed with a certain dignity. After all, who would choose to be zombified? If you loved Justin Cronin's The Passage, this summer's vampire hit, you'll get a charge out of The Reapers Are the Angels. It's a literary/horror mashup that is unsettlingly good. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more