It’s Not Easy Being Undead

Now that he has been turned into a zombie, Sheldon Funk misses a number of things. Breathing. Yawning. Blowing his nose. Sex, not so much.

In the opening pages of Husk, Corey Redekop’s madcap zombie yarn, Sheldon faces a more pressing problem. Two guys in white lab coats are cutting him open and tearing out his vital organs. Roaring into action, Sheldon rises from his gurney, trashes the morgue, dispatches his tormentors, snacks on their remains and trundles off into the night, kicking off a comic, picaresque novel that, although occasionally over the top, is fresh, original and engaging.

Determined to get on with afterlife, Sheldon stuffs his innards into his eviscerated torso and considers binding his wounds with duct tape. Canadian identity may be elusive, but apparently it outlasts death. Toronto turns out to be a tough town for zombies. “Snow and wind battered me,” Sheldon relates as he trudges away from the hospital, “pushing me across the ice...