I decided to end 2024 by reading three novellas. This was the first.

 The book came with an award, the 2022 Novel Prize,* and adulation from the excellent critic and all-around nice bloke Niall Harrison.**

 It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over is a zombie novella. It never hides that fact. Our protagonist is a member of the undead, and when the book opens, she tells us, very matter of factly, that—

 “I lost my left arm today. It came off clean at the shoulder. Janice 2 picked it up and brought it back to the hotel. I would have thought it would affect my balance more than it has.”

 That excerpt is indicative of the style: terse, direct sentences, impressionistic at times. It makes for a haunting reading experience as our protagonist splits from the other undead, nominally searching for her lover, whom she barely remembers, much like how she has forgotten her name. Oh, and she also carries a crow inside her, as you do.

 According to the back cover, the novella asks, “How much of our memory, of our bodies, of the world as we know it—how much of what we love can we lose before we are lost? And then what happens?” I never felt Marcken was asking those questions. Yes, memory and identity loss is central to the story—there’s an element of the Ship of Theseus to several of the protagonist’s conversations with the other undead. But both the beauty and tragedy of the novella is how much she is stuck in the present moment, that it’s her recent memories, the one she’s forming now—and will lose as she continues to decompose and shed body parts—that she’s desperate to retain.

 “Time inside of time. Things inside of things. The crow inside of me. The mouse in the belly of the trout. The belly of the girl on the golf course. Things that ache. Real things and unreal things. It is pointless to wish I had the thunder back instead of this endless grief.”

 *Not literally. The book won the award, not me. But it would be nice to be sent an award every time you read a book. Would it cheapen the concept of awards? Yes. Would the awards crowd out all the books? Yes. But would it be nice nonetheless until the novelty wore off? Absolutely, yes!

**I heartily recommend Niall’s collection, All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays, if you have even a modicum of interest in genre fiction and the art of criticism.