The Blondes

by Emily Schultz

A breakout novel for a young writer whose last book was shortlisted for the Trillium Prize alongside Anne Michaels and Margaret Atwood, and whom the Toronto Star called a "force of nature."

Hazel Hayes is a graduate student living in New York City when she learns that she is pregnant from an ill-advised affair with her married professor. More worrisome than the shock of this discovery is the apocalyptically bad timing: random but deadly attacks, all by women with light hair, have begun terrorizing the city's inhabitants. As the days pass, it becomes clear that the attacks are symptoms of a strange contagion that is transforming blondes from all walks of life--whether CEOs, flight attendants, students, accountants, television personalities, or academics--into rabid killers. Hazel--confused, desperate, almost penniless and soon visibly pregnant--flees the city and sets out to cross the border into Canada where she will find the one woman who just might be able to help her in a world gone awry.

• ISBN10: 0385671067
• ISBN13: 9780385671064
• Publish Date: 1 August 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Doubleday Canada
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[elvinagb]

Hazel Hayes goes to NYC to work on her doctoral thesis and shortly after she arrives she finds she is pregnant, by her thesis advisor from Toronto. The day she finds out, the world is struck by an outbreak of a SARS type virus that seems to affect only blonde women. The virus turns them into crazed killers and soon enough the population is shaving their heads and dying their hair to avoid the plague.
Hazel decides to tell the father of her child that she is pregnant and return to Toronto, but circumstances soon find her in quarantine and out of touch of all her friends and family.
Hazel is telling her story to her unborn child while hiding out at the cabin owned by her ex-lover and his wife. She recounts her childhood, her time in NYC and what is happening to her now as she copes with her pregnancy and Grace, her ex-lover's wife.
We see a world turned upside down by fear and suspicion and a new idea of what it is to be a blonde. Despite all that is falling apart around Hazel, she copes, survives and does what she can to save her own and her child's life.
This is a great take on all the zombie apocalypse type stories that are so popular.