The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten

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A Black Comedy/horror novel by "Harrison Geillor" that tells the tale of a small Minnesota town forced to face down an invasion of zombies.

When the Zombie Apocalypse hits, college boy Rufus returns to his hometown of Lake Woebegotten to warn his friends and neighbors. However, when he arrives, the situation is more complicated than he had foreseen. The town P. D. has hired Mr. Levitt, a retired school superintendent/serial killer, as their chief zombie hunter, and he's out for blood. The only force that stands in his way is a small group of vigilantes lead by Father Edsel, a Catholic priest, and Daniel Inkfist, a Lutheran pastor. Throw a couple of retired military personnel and an undead bear into the mix, and things are going to get pretty hairy.

Tropes used in The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten include:
  • Action Girl: Julie, the waitress at the local diner, turns out to be ex-Israeli military, and quite handy with a pistol.
  • Badass Preacher: Father Edsel beat a fellow priest with a lead pipe after he discovered that priest molesting an altar boy, then got that same priest to listen to his confession for succumbing to the sin of wrath. There are rumors around the town that he once participated in a "real pea-souper" of an exorcism. He is the first resident of the town to kill a zombie (he blows its head off with a shotgun). He then proceeds to organize the Interfaith Anti-Zombie League to protect the town, saves at least one child from being bitten by a zombie, and finally comes up with the plan that rids the town of their infestation once and for all.
  • Big Freaking Gun: Harry and Stevie Ray from the P. D. go after a zombie infestation in a funeral home with army surplus shotguns described as looking more like something out of a science fiction movie than actual guns.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Lampshaded when Stevie Ray points out that if he goes up into a zombie-filled attic, he'll be toast for this very reason. Subverted in that not only is Harry, the white cop, the first one of the two to die (though not in said attic), Stevie Ray makes it through the whole novel without even being injured.
  • Bolivian Army Ending: On the book's final page, just as the town's survivors are celebrating their victory, one last recently-turned zombie wanders into the local diner, hungry for human flesh.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Julie, who seems to be a passing character at the beginning of the book, turns out to be quite instrumental in studying the zombie plague and ending Mr. Levitt's reign of terror. Even more importantly, Big-Horn Jim, the town crackpot who believes he is a Viking, kills the bear that comes back as a zombie and proceeds in chasing after Mr. Levitt.
  • Crazy Survivalist: Cyrus Bell, the town's weaponry outfitter for the duration of the crisis. He has stockpiled hundreds of weapons, most of them illegal, and is obsessed with numerous wild conspiracy theories. This comes in handy when Father Edsel formulates his endgame against the zombie foe.
  • Everything Is Worse With Bears: Especially when the bear in question is a zombie.
  • Eye Scream: Rufus' untimely demise (stabbed through the eye with a modified hunting knife).
  • Gosh Darn It to Heck: Rufus, after coming back home, is forced to revert from his former casual profanity-tossing to colorful euphemisms while living with his mother. Stevie Ray is also an example; the foulest words to come out of his mouth are "heck", "darn", and "son of a gun".
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Mr. Levitt's ultimate demise. He is on the run from a zombie bear and finally kills it by hurling a fragmentary grenade at it. This backfires horribly when he realizes he has been running across an ice-coated lake...and the explosion has caused the ice to crack. Cue death by drowning.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: In that some animals turn, too, not just humans.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Father Edsel before he blows the head off of the town's first zombie: "Get thee behind me, Satan."
  • Precision F-Strike: When Otto, who repeatedly chastens his nephew Rufus about his language, starts complaining about how a fuckin' zombie dog bit his fuckin' leg, you know things have gotten serious.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The whole town of Lake Woebegotten is a substitute for the Minnesota town of Lake Woebegone from A Prairie Home Companion, and its author, "Harrison Geillor", is, of course, a substitute for Garrison Keillor.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Mr. Levitt plays the game fairly well; he manages to get himself into prison during the initial zombie outbreak, thus remaining safe in a proverbial "shark cage", then gets himself out of prison and manipulates his way into becoming the town's chief zombie hunter. He starts to slip as his blood lust grows insatiable; he fails to get himself elected as mayor due to his "accidentally" murdering humans during a pitched battle with a group of zombies, and his final gambit of unearthing the town's cemeteries and leading the resulting undead army to destroy Lake Woebegotten's inhabitants fail utterly.
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