Product Description

Something very peculiar is happening in Stockholm. There's a heatwave on and people cannot turn their lights out or switch their appliances off. Then the terrible news breaks. In the city morgue, the dead are waking up...What do they want? What everybody wants: to come home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3153 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-02
• Original language: Swedish
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Review
'Some books are just too good. Handling the Undead is superbly written, with beautifully drawn, fully realised characters, a lively, well-constructed narrative and a wonderfully paced and balanced plot. It's an intensely atmospheric book ... it's a masterpiece, fantastically well-written and totally gripping' --SFX magazine.

'It's not often I come across a writer as original, compelling or as inventive as Lindqvist … the haunting imagery stays lodged in the mind long after the book is finished' --Mail On Sunday

'Reminiscent of Stephen King at his best. Best read by sunlight' --Independent on Sunday

From the Back Cover
Something peculiar is happening. Stockholm is enduring a heatwave, electrical appliances cannot be switched off and everyone has a blinding headache. Then the terrible news breaks - in the city morgue, the dead are waking...
David always knew his wife was far too good for him. But he never knew how lost he'd be without her until tonight when her car hit an elk. Now she's gone and he's alone. But when he goes to identify her body, she begins to move. It's terrifying, but it gives David a strange kind of hope.
Across the city, grieving families find themselves able to see their loved-ones one last time. But are these creatures really them? How long can this last? And what does it all mean?
Handling the Undead is a thrilling, shocking and moving story about a love that can defy death from the acclaimed author of Let the Right One In.

About the Author
Born in 1968, John Ajvide Lindqvist grew up in Stockholm. He once took second prize in the Nordic card-trick championship, before becoming a stand-up comedian, a writer of plays and TV scripts. His bestselling books include Let the Right One In, also published by Quercus and now a major film.

Customer Reviews

If you had the chance...
'Let the right one in' also by John Ajvide Lindqvist is one of my favourite reads of this year, a remarkable story, not just a vampire story but so much more. Handling the Undead is just as good, another amazing story from John Ajvide Lindqvist.

'Handling the Undead' begins in Stockholm on a night when the weather is heavy and everyone can feel that something is about to happen and it does, in the worse way imaginable, people who have been dead for two months are returning from the dead, the government are not sure what to do, the families of the 'reliving' (as they are eventually called) are at a loss of what to do or how to feel about it?

'Handling the Undead' is a book that makes you think, what would you do? So much happens once the 'reliving' return, the government find themselves making the wrong decisions, how do you handle people who are technically alive but not alive, do they have rights? Do they have a place in the world? Can they return to their families?

'Handling the Undead' is more than a story about life after death, what do you do when you lose someone and they come back from the dead? All the characters in the story are conflicted, they have lost someone in some way and now they have returned but the 'reliving' are different, they are not the people they once were, they are a shell of what they were but at the same time there is a faint glimmer of the person they were.

All of the relationships are strong relationships, you can feel the strength as you read, and you feel their pain and their loss, their confusion, coming to terms with a loss and then their happiness when their loved ones return.

I found 'Handling the Undead' to be a powerful read, so many questions are raised and so many social problems are brought forward, you will get very engrossed in this story, there is so much to this book that you will find enjoyable, enlightening, scary and most of all make you look at the world around you.

A must read.

sadly underwhelming
I was thrilled to start this novel, having utterly loved Lindqvist's 'Let The Right One In'. The first few chapters are inspired and utterly beguiling but then it all went horribly wrong. From a terrifying and totally realistically handled premise where the recently deceased have come back to 'life', this quickly became a zombie of its own. The multiple characters and storylines, so enticingly laid out just enter a bewildering period of stasis, much like the zombies themselves. Think of this novel as the written equivalent of the TV series 'Lost'. All fluff and nonsense, expertly handlled but where nothing really happens for ages. Characters so frozen by grief and so damaged they wait, and wait some more. Yet, like Lost there is just enough to keep you turning the pages with hope that something momentous will happen soon. Sadly, it doesn't. The end is a mess of quazi religeous portent, overwraught high gothic tinged hysteria and an ending that smacks of the author having no real idea of how to end it. Great shame. If this virging on dull book wasn't so beautifully written, it would have had one star.

A great idea
A great idea - just what do you do when the recently deceased come back to life and return home? These are the harmless and lonely walking dead, not the usual crazed killers, so blowing their brains out is not an option. I particularly liked the reaction of those who saw it as the Day of Judgement then got less and less sure as time dragged on. I couldn't buy into the ending though.