Matt Mikalatos
SaltRiver, 2011, 228 pp., $14.99
An everyman walks his neighborhood at night with a flashlight in hand, feeling a sense of responsibility to scare off danger with his swagger. All of this is turned upside when he discovers the mad scientist, robot, zombies, werewolf, vampires and more that monstrously reside in the people he sees every day. This is not a horror novel, but a walk through an undead form of Christianity, a metaphor which we (unfortunately) need to recognize in the real world.
Matt Mikalatos scores again in Night of the Living Dead Christian, creating a tongue-in-cheek tale that mashes Tom Hanks in The ‘Burbs with C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Just as you feel exhausted by the pinnacle of the book’s absurdity, you experience a candid breath of honesty when the monster in all of us is called into the light (including the vampires). Perhaps the most helpful resource in the book is an appendix listing the types of common monsters Christians settle into becoming, from “Invisible People” who spy on others to “Trolls” who guard their gold.
Don’t judge this book by its cover—its core story is more honest than one might want to admit. Buried beneath the fangs and pale skin is a question of whether the transformation the Bible describes is possible. Don’t merely fill in the blank of that question with the right answer, lest you become a creature of the night yourself. Grab this book, let it grab you, and let go to become human again.
