Review by Booklist Review
Tremblay (The Cabin at the End of the World, 2018) has earned worldwide acclaim because he is able to seamlessly combine reality with speculative elements, and his newest may be his most prescient yet. As a virulent strain of rabies spreads in Massachusetts, hospitals are overrun and society is falling apart. Pediatrician Ramola "Rams" Sherman is called into action when her pregnant best friend, Natalie, flees her home after she is bitten and her husband is attacked and killed by an infected neighbor. Together they embark on a desperate journey to try to save Natalie and her baby. The novel is framed as a folk song, but it is also a song of friendship, love, and hope despite it all. The fast-paced tale is told within a compressed time line, full of dread, violence, panic; and yet, there are also moments of clarity and beauty. Gorgeously written about terrible things, the relatively short Survivor Song is a good choice for fans of pandemic epics like Joe Hill's The Fireman (2016) and novels that probe themes of friendship, family, and social commentary amidst chillingly realistic horror like Gwendolyn Kiste's The Rust Maidens (2018) or Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians (2020).
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A highly contagious rabies-like virus that turns its victims into homicidal maniacs drives this standout thriller from Stoker Award winner Tremblay (The Cabin at the End of the World). The state of Massachusetts is under quarantine, hospitals are overwhelmed, and people are panicking as authorities struggle to maintain order. After Natalie Larsen, who's eight months pregnant, is bitten by an infected neighbor in an attack that kills Natalie's husband, her pediatrician friend, Ramola Sherman, attempts to get her to a hospital for a vaccine before it's too late. When this proves unsuccessful, the two women embark on a desperate odyssey across a nightmarish eastern Massachusetts landscape in hope of reaching a safe place to deliver Natalie's baby. Along the way, they're threatened by rabid animals, roving rabies-infected victims, and frightened local militias. Their journey becomes even more hopeless as the first symptoms of Natalie's rabies begin to appear and Ramola must confront a decision she dreads to make. The vividly drawn characters of Ramola and Natalie give the story an uncommon emotional intensity. This is genuinely hard to put down. Agent: Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
With a rabies-like disease sweeping Massachusetts, causing victims to go mad within the hour and viciously bite others before dying, pediatrician Ramola "Rams" Sherman has one concern: the husband of eight-months-pregnant friend Natalie has just succumbed, and Natalie herself has been bitten. How to protect her unborn child? With a 75,000-copy first printing; billed as a psychological thriller, but note that Tremblay is a Bram Stoker Award winner.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
When a virulent and potent form of rabies upends life as we know it in Massachusetts, a pregnant woman and her pediatrician must fight for survival. Tremblay reached rare new highs in the horror genre with the superbly creepy novel The Cabin at the End of the World (2018) and the Twilight Zone--esque story collection Growing Things (2019). Now, in the midst of a real-life health crisis, Tremblay delivers an eerily prophetic story about a mass outbreak of a rage-inducing virus and the havoc that ensues--basically, he's gone full-on Stephen King by way of 28 Days Later. The story opens in a small, woodsy community south of Boston where what seemed like a relatively mild rabies problem has jumped to humans, who are driven to violent rages and overtaken by a compulsion to bite as many other victims as possible to spread the disease before they eventually succumb and die within a short time. One of our protagonists is Natalie, a very pregnant woman whose husband is violently murdered by one of the outbreak victims right before her eyes. Desperate, bitten, and infected herself while also in shock, she reaches out to her pediatrician, Dr. Ramola "Rams" Sherman, to help her get a dose of the rabies vaccine before she has the baby or succumbs to the illness. Now it's a race against time to save Natalie and the baby, all while communities are being ravaged by violence. Meanwhile, the outbreak is exacerbated by "a myopic, sluggish federal bureaucracy further hamstrung by a president unwilling and woefully unequipped to make the rational, science-based decisions necessary." Encounters with well-meaning strangers and near-death escapes are punctuated by Natalie's sweet recorded messages to her unborn child. A cinematic scope, scenarios grounded in the real world, and a breathless pace make this thriller one of the must-read titles of the summer. A prescient, insidious horror novel that takes sheer terror to a whole new level. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
