Becky Spratford's Reviews > Partially Devoured: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World

Reading for review in a future issue of Booklist

Three Words That Describe This Book: conversational style, heartbreakingly beautiful, 360 degrees of detail

For all readers, whether they have heard of Romero or not, this is a book about America, about death, oozing with grief on every page, while simultaneously bursting with life.

What readers think begins as a film study, an argument for the greatness of Night of the Living Dead morphs over time into an intimate memoir, one that allows the author to process his grief, both personal and for what our country has become.

It all begins with a note on how to cue your version of the film to the book. And then everything is told under the headings of time stamps. Kraus explains what is going on in the scene, including details about the filming, actors, how the scene was created, mistakes in the film (but they are all endearing to Kraus), backstories about the business and all of the sequels inspired works etc.... so much.

This is ultimately a memoir about the author, but it also gives everyone who was a part of the movie, a small chance to live again as well. Kraus digs into

But it is all relayed in a conversational style, as if you are watching this movie alongside him and it is being paused in a scene and then he gives your every bit of minutia about that scene but gets sidetracked into so much more detail. It flows perfectly wether you have seen the movie 100x or like the average American you know the basic outline of the classic movie.

Along the way he is also meticulously leading readers to understand his argument for why this film is so important. I won't spoil it for you. Read the book.

But this is also billed as the story of how a movie about the dead coming back to life taught Kraus how to live, personally, and in this part he does not disappoint. Kraus shares his personal connection to the film (which he has done in other places before) but goes even further to share how it made him the man and artist he is today.

It is a film study, a social study of America through the lens of this film from the moment it came out until today, it is a memoir of a famous author, and it is a grief narrative-- of people lost and not just those Kraus knows personally, of a country lost, of a time lost, of bad luck, mistakes....so much grief. And yet, here Kraus stands, living and making sense of the world through art,

Jade Daniels (from My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones) would love this book. She would weep on the bench with Kraus as the book ends.

Also for those who loved Cassandra Peterson's memoir of her life as Elvira. But, and I am serious here, this is also for fans of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Don't think that because this is about a zombie movie it is not worthy to be compared to that classic. If you have a reader who is not a snob and can just trust you that these two books have so much in common, they will thank you.

Kraus has had a lot of books that will never be forgotten from Rotters (still a YA classic) to The Shape of Water to Whalefall and now Angel Down, but this is a book that will be read long after he is gone. Fans of the movie will find it and will take the deep dive with him and then, they will find so much more about America, about people, about death, and most importantly, about life.