Author and unconventional thinker Max Brooks to speak
By Dana DuGan
How can the questionable study of fictitious zombie lore help people be more prepared for the real events in the future? You can find out that and much more at a lecture presented by The Community Library with Max Brooks. A best-selling zombie-lore expert and former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” Brooks will speak from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 29, at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theater, located at the Community Campus in Hailey.
“A patron of ours, Jane Watkins, heard him talk on NPR and mentioned it to us,” said Tim Price, the library’s program director. “We’ve been talking for some time about generating programing to engage the whole Valley, including a younger demographic. Having it at the Community Campus is key to that. He uses zombie lore as metaphor [such as] how we can deal with our worst tendencies and our most pressing problems, including population density, climate change, foreign policy.”
Known for having inched the pop culture zombie lore into the mainstream, Brooks’ niche is expanding. He published three successful books, “The Zombie Survival Guide,” “World War Z” and “The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks,” which are considered definitive tomes for the genre. But he is also the author of “Minecraft: The Island” and “The Harlem Hellfighters,” a graphic novel that chronicles the little-known story of the first African-American regiment mustered to fight in World War I.
Of course, Brooks’ family history is intriguing. His parents, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, were both legendary entertainers—a comic and a multi-award-winning actress, respectively—but they instilled in him a theatrical response to the world, with fear and anxiety as main focuses.
However, on NPR’s Fresh Air, Brooks said that he was ready in case of a zombie attack due to what he learned while writing both “The Zombie Survival Guide” and “World War Z.”
But it’s not all in the clouds or between the pages. The public’s fascination with zombies has brought attention to preparedness in general. Even the Centers for Disease Control has a “Zombie Plan.”
In the same interview, Brooks added that he’s dedicated to challenging and encouraging systems and institutions to think outside the box when problem solving by using mental agility and preparedness.
“Zombies reflect our very real anxieties of these crazy scary times,” Brooks said in an interview posted on his webpage. “A zombie story gives people a fictional lens to see the real problems of the world. You can deal with societal breakdown, famine, disease, chaos in the streets, but as long as the catalyst for all of them is zombies, you can still sleep.”
Making a great leap forward, Brooks’ unconventional work inspired the U.S. military to examine how they may respond to potential crises in the future.
“World War Z” was read and discussed by the sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and subsequently Brooks was invited to speak at a variety of military engagements, including at the Naval War College, a FEMA hurricane drill in San Antonio, and a nuclear “Vibrant Response” war game.
In 2016, Brooks accepted a fellowship at the Modern War Institute at West Point, where he studies, writes about, and lectures to cadets about today’s current conflicts.
Before the talk at the Community Campus, Brooks will meet with students to discuss problem solving, and how he overcame dyslexia to become more creative en route to being a best-selling author and sought-after expert on post-apocalyptic survival strategies. A book signing will follow his talk, with books available for purchase through Iconoclast Books and Gifts.
The event is sponsored by Watkins, and is free to the public, but tickets are required for admission. These can be accessed on The Community Library website at comlib.org. Costumes are encouraged, too, since those who don zombie-related costumes are entered into a raffle to win a Fire HD 10 tablet.