I read and reviewed Dread Nation a couple of years ago but felt that I needed to do a re-read to refresh my memory before starting book 2 — Deathless Divide. In these novels, Justina Ireland imagines the US in the period immediately following the Civil War but with a strange twist. At the Battle of Gettysburg, the war ended when the battlefield dead rose up as zombies or shamblers, forcing Union and Rebel soldiers to work together against the undead. A new kind of war grips the nation as the ranks of the undead grow and threaten the east coast, yet at the same time, the racism that enabled slavery remains and influences politics, economics and basic safety. While officially slavery is no more, in fact Black people bear the burden of defending white communities from the undead and remain segregated and dehumanized. In this world young black women train as fighters so as to work as “attendants” to rich white women, guarding them from shamblers and any other unwanted advances. Ireland’s main characters, Jane McKeene and Katherine Deveraux, are two teens attending Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls. They are both outstanding fighters, but the similarities end there. Jane is darker skinned and rebellious, while Katherine is fair skinned to the point where she could pass for white. Katherine is also a rule follower and lover of fashion. While the two young women seem to detest one anther, events will conspire to throw them together and force them to learn to get along if they want to survive.
Dread Nation introduces Jane and Katherine and shows the reader what a zombie-filled United States looks like. Cities are walled and heavily armed. White men remain in charge although there is political division between Survivalists who desire a return to the the old ways of doing things (i.e., slavery) and Egalitarians who want communities built on equality of the races. We learn that some scientists are trying to find a vaccine against becoming a zombie but without much success. One of the more spectacular failures occurs at a lecture in Baltimore attended by the young ladies of Miss Preston’s school, forcing Jane and a few others to heroically save the day. Mayor Carr, a Survivalist, now has his eyes on Jane, but an additional matter of concern is the disappearance of some local white folks who had Egalitarian leanings. Jane gets caught up in this mystery when her friend and former lover Jackson tells her that his little sister Lily (fair enough to pass as white) is one of the missing. When Jackson and Jane attempt to investigate, they and Katherine get caught up in a trap set by Mayor Carr and shipped to a Survivalist colony in Kansas known as Summerland.
Summerland is run by a racist thug of a sheriff and his father, who is a fire-and-brimstone preacher. Whites in Summerland get special privileges while Blacks are essentially slaves, sent to guard the walls of the settlement with little food and terrible “weapons.” Losing some of them to shamblers is considered normal and nothing to be concerned about. Jane, who has a tendency to speak her mind, is once again marked as a problem by the sheriff, but Katherine, who manages to pass herself off as white at Jane’s instigation, helps Jane and Jackson plan to escape Summerland with as many of the Blacks as possible. Among the characters introduced at Summerland is Gideon Carr, a scientist who is also son of Mayor Carr of Baltimore. He seems like a decent young man, and Jane takes a fancy to him. Gideon is aware of the latest breakthroughs in science regarding electricity and he is interested in the possibility of vaccination, having developed a potential vaccine himself. All Blacks at Summerland, including Jane, are forced to take this vaccine as guinea pigs. Gideon, although white, seems not to get along with the sheriff and preacher, which means he is a potential ally to Jane and Katherine.
At the end of this first novel, Jane, Katherine and their cohort must deal with chaos and violence in order to save themselves. They are now on the run on the open prairies of Kansas where shamblers abound for reasons that they are only starting to understand. The thought had been that moving west would be a way to escape zombies, but is anywhere safe?
Deathless Divide begins at an Egalitarian settlement in Kansas and ends in California. When Jane and company get to the Kansas settlement called Nicodemus, they find many old friends and a few enemies, but it’s not always clear which is which. Everyone feels safe behind fortified walls, but if Jane and Katherine have learned anything, it’s that walls do not protect you for very long. The violence that erupts there is quite graphically described, and Jane and Katherine are separated. Ireland then jumps ahead a year in her narrative and shows us how each young woman has managed to find her way to California, although with very different goals in mind.
Deathless Divide is an interesting novel for how it shows the long-term impact of violence on victims of it. Our characters suffer from what I think we could call PTSD, with Katherine experiencing acute anxiety and panic attacks. Meanwhile, Jane has become consumed by a desire for revenge to the point that she just might become the very kind of monster she has always hated. It is very interesting to read because one can understand and sympathize with her anger. She and her friends have been brutalized and treated like animals. “Justice” does not exist for Black people, so is it wrong to take the matter into your own hands if you can? When the two women meet again, Katherine is stunned by the change in Jane and resolves to try to bring back the Jane she once knew. Jane is closing in on the object of her revenge, but will this chase lead to her own destruction?
Even though these novels deal with zombies and the post Civil War era, they are extraordinarily relevant to current matters concerning race relations and the use/abuse of Black people throughout history. The second novel, in my opinion, was not as strong as the first, and I think that is because the author wanted to cover so much in this novel that it sometimes comes across as a bit of a hodgepodge. Nonetheless, it is an exciting read and delivers a satisfying ending, Perhaps there is even the chance of a continuation of Jane’s adventures in future novels. These stories are a good choice for fans of zombie lit and bad ass women.