Mark Spitz

Mark Spitz is, at the outset, a muted, meandering character, a man who considers himself exceptionally average. He is characterized as an everyman who stands out in no meaningful way from the billions of other human beings on earth: “He was their typical, he was their most, he was their average” (9). Yet, Mark Spitz’s averageness makes him the perfect plague survivor, having experienced enough pre-plague pleasure to lament the loss of modern society, but enough despair and lack of fulfillment to detach himself from its loss.

Because of Mark Spitz’s inveterate mediocrity, he is Zone One’s antihero, an unsung and unglamorous apocalyptic survivor who goes about his zombie-killing with an uncanny apathy; there isn’t much too root for. He finds no meaning or reason to life’s randomness—it just is. Even when Spitz does engage in exciting or energetic behavior, such as...