Broken Hearts and Zombie Parts     

In a post-text note, William Hussey tells us that ‘This is far and away the most personal book I have ever written and it feels right that, although it tackles some serious subjects, it is a comedy’. A couple of years ago, he needed open-heart surgery to correct a heart defect – a bicuspid aortic valve. Among the book’s dedicatees are the medics who saved his life.

We meet Jesse Spark, our narrator, in hospital undergoing tests. There’s a problem with his bicuspid aortic valve. He’ll need open-heart surgery. By the time he’s stopped talking long enough to allow his consultant to make his diagnosis, we’ve learned a good deal about Jesse from his meandering anecdotes about his friends Cas and Morgan and their misadventures during the catastrophic Year Twelve prom at Ferrivale High, his encyclopaedic knowledge of horror movies, and his passionate commitment to making such films himself. It’s also clear that any story Jesse narrates will be a comedy. Ferrivale High serves as a stage for YA romcom encounters, melodramas, break-ups and so on; life there is untroubled by lessons and teachers (except for the odd film specialist who isn’t like most teachers anyway). Conversations between students, especially Jesse, Cas and Morgs, read like a quick-fire, well-practised script in their wit and idiom.

And that works well, given that the plot is also not over-concerned with everyday realities. Despite his youth, Jesse is already a brilliant film director, he reckons Cas is the most brilliant cinematographer of his generation, while Morgan is a brilliant character actor of such subtlety and range that, by the end of the novel, she’s got a top agent and offers of auditions are flooding in. Before he faces the surgeon’s scalpel, Jesse wants to shoot his next movie, Zombie Honeymoon, based on his own script. At the same time, he’s determined to meet his first boyfriend (he came out some time ago to his widowed mother who was more than happy about that – Jesse claims she’s so pretty she’s the mental pin-up for every straight guy in Year Twelve). The need for that meeting is urgent because Jesse is convinced that after the scalpel has done its work, no boy would want to look at anyone with such a scar.  Alongside Jesse’s personal anxieties, Cas and Morgs and a couple of other cast members are struggling with their own tangled webs.

Getting hold of thousands of pounds worth of the school’s movie equipment presents a problem, cleverly overcome by the friends through a plan involving Jesse role-playing a middle-aged Australian (cunningly made up) thinking of sending his daughter to the school. The wealthy pig-farming Dad of a wannabe female lead tosses in £5K to cover costs, Jesse and Cas discover three stunning locations in walking distance, Stan the Man with the Cans comes on board to take care of the Sound, Morgs knows loads of people longing to be zombies, as well as superb SFX experts and Roisin, a make-up artist with a special interest in blood, gore and zombies. The weather is perfect, so they can start shooting any time.

Hussey drives everything along at pace, balancing the hectic action against people’s awareness that Jesse’s imminent surgery is not without risk. And not everyone is as agreeable as they seem on first meeting.

Readers know all will be well; and it is. Jesse can even see that his scar is a cause for celebration – a reminder for him, and for his creator, that they have come through.