Product Description

It's New Year's Eve of 1999, and while Millennium celebrations are planned and the clock ticks downward amid rising fears and misgivings, professional nobody Ross Orringer is coming to grips with the fact that, at some point, his life has become stagnant. He is twenty-six years old and attends the same meaningless college parties, peddles the same sleazy horror movies with his best friend Preston, lives in the shadow of his younger sister's constant achievements, and continues to date the same two-timing girlfriend while engaging in an affair of his own with one of her closest friends.

And to make matters worse, Ross is being photographed and monitored everywhere he goes, and receives chilling glances from every stranger he encounters.

The paranoia mounts when Ross's closest friends and family begin acting more and more suspiciously as the New Year--and Preston's New Year's party--approaches. In the last minutes before the clock strikes twelve, Ross realizes that the new millennium may be more ominous than anyone could have imagined, because the streets have been closed, the crews have set up their cameras and equipment, the gray makeup has been applied, and decisions have been made.

In the next millennium, time will lose all meaning, reality television will take an all too terrifying turn, and the living dead will roam the streets in search of Ross and everyone that is important to him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #318784 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 388 pages

Review
Jason Hornsby's Every Sigh, The End may be the best zombie novel I have read. It feels like a grand truth is peeking through the enigmatic and conspiratorial fog that suffuses the novel. It all seems to mean something... -- Devon Kappa, None May Say

About the Author
Jason S. Hornsby is an honors graduate of the University of South Florida and was once accused of authoring The Perfect Spiral. When not visiting haunted schoolhouses or chasing down the Florida skunk ape, Mr. Hornsby teaches high school English and prepares for the Apocalypse, which he believes will be soon.

Customer Reviews

A Review. Of a Novel. About Zombies.
This mind-bending novel by newcomer Jason S. Hornsby is fresher than the flesh of a newly turned zombie.

Hornsby's ideas are the most creative and original to hit the living-dead genre since director Danny Boyle gave us fast and furious zombies in the movie "28 Days Later."

For one thing, Hornsby meshes the apocalypse with reality television, a perfect marriage for the new millenium. For another, he plays with the space/time continuum in a truly chilling way. Protagonist Ross Orringer must fight zombies on soundstages with shifting rooms and bit players who disappear into thin air.

Poor Ross. He knows he can't trust the zombies who surround the house where he's partying on New Year's Eve. But it turns out he can't necessarily trust his closest friends or even his family.

Hornsby's book is confusing at times, frustrating in places, and brilliant throughout, with some truly scary moments. It's one of the most exciting novels I've read in recent months -- and that's all novels, not just zombie novels.

I strongly recommend "Every Sigh, The End" to readers who are willing to get onto this up and coming author's intense and bizarre roller coaster. But I warn you, stand next to the wooden cutout before you do and make sure your "creepy tolerance" is high enough to ride.

A terribly original book
I write this review with some trepidation. I almost feel as if the story should be reviewed and analyzed in an English or Literature classroom, or perhaps in some exotic American Philosophy class, rather on a website that sells this book. This is a book that reminds me to look at things a bit differently, to try something new and completely different. It reminds me of stories read in college and high school that I was turned on to not by friends or family that know my tastes but by someone who felt I should try something that would lead me down a different path entirely.

What I write here is for the people who are curious about this book, people who want to see if this book is up their alley. Some of the previous reviews seem of a personal nature perhaps written by folks who know Jason Hornsby. I can say that I definitely do not know the author. I came into the book with no preconcieved notions or presumptions as to what I should expect. I would also say that, after reading this review, if you feel that this book is perhaps not right for you, you might want to reconsider that, as it is certainly a very challenging and intriguing work that might make you think more than you expected.

This book is angry, it is dark, and it is about zombies. But it does not follow any known pathway to completion that I have ever seen in a tale about the undead. The author has completely transcended the genre with a work that is more philosophy and questions our society, our reality, and what we are as individuals than even the works of Romero and other "deep thinkers" of this realm.

Like so many high quality works the zombies here are a tool that is wielded by the author or film maker to force us to look more closely at ourselves. Here, that idea is taken literally, with everything related to the dead scripted out completely by shadowy men that run everything and work in conjunction with the entertainment industry to run grandiose experiments with unsuspecting citizens...in particular, our main character.

I could envision Oliver Stone directing a movie version of this book, as it is rife with conspiracy theories and conjecture as to who is really in control of everything. Beyond even that, it conjures up questions about our reality, our existence. Who are we and do we even realize that the world has already come to an end?

I hated the main character at first, but while I never grew affectionate of him, I could see him changing and seeing things in different ways, his helplessness, as time went on. His arogance and presumptive attitude is undercut by realization after realization that he should trust no one, that the world is a lonely place, and that we are all dead and buried already. We are the zombies that continue to live in this world, we just don't either care or realize it.

Pretty grim stuff and even though I am very avid fan of zombie books and movies, this is something totally different. The zombies are a big part of the story here, don't get me wrong, but they are a metaphor for us as human beings as we walk woodenly through this world. This style of writing is something that I can take in smaller doses now and again and because of that, I ended up liking this book a great deal more than I thought I would after a few pages in. In the end, I sped through the rest of it and believe that I will more than likely end up reading it again down the road to remind myself of this authors unique vision of things.

Why not 5 stars? Perhaps because the book was like an itch that I could not scratch. The author is angry and bitter and his vision of the world and those around him which is not anything like my own. I feel that I could perhaps have a very interesting conversation with Jason, but I think it just as likely that he would judge me in some negative fashion because I hold a different worldview than he...or perhaps I am totally wrong on that front. I can intersect with his viewpoints through a book such as this and be appreciative of it; it serves to remind me that there are those out there who are necessary in this world: the ones who have great anger and fixate on conspiracies and the wonders of an era long gone, they have resentment and view things in a way that I more than likely cannot or choose not to. Whether I agree entirely or even on a miniscule level with what the author has to say about "us" I appreciate his passion and his words keep my mind open to views other than my own. That makes this a valuable book and one that I will remember for a very long time.

I recommend this work for both those who question everything and those who do not question enough.

Interesting Book, I Just Wished I Understood It Better`
I would certainly go on record as saying this is the most unusual zombie novel I have ever read. I would also add to its description with terms like creative, imaginative, and intriguing. However, I am also willing to admit certain parts of the story had me completely baffled, and I am no closer to understanding them than when I read them, several months ago.

The basic part of the story I understood was the zombie "invasion" was all part of a vast, pre-planned and scripted reality TV show, taking place just at the change of the new year (from 1999 to 2000). How would spoiled, self-centered, lazy American young adults react to such an event. Would they scatter individually, each one trying to save him or herself? Or would they act together as a group, for the good of all? That, and the descriptions of the undead panic as it spread, made a very readable story.

However, it was much of the background material and concepts that confused me. It was implied (at least as I understood it) that all reality was somehow just part of a larger "show" that someone was running behind the scenes. The main character comes to realize this in bits and pieces, some of them being his examination of old home movies his family made when he was a child. For example, in one film taken on the beach, there were scenes with his whole family in the picture; they were supposed to be the only ones on the beach, but who was holding the camera? At other points in story, people, and "scenery" disappear or change with barely any explanation; characters from earlier parts of the story simply vanish, as do any memory of their presence by relatives or friends, as do entire buildings or parts of neighborhoods.

There also seems to be some references to time travel, and one instance of being in two places at once, that I did not understand. At one point in the story, the main character hides in a building at night. There, he meets a group of people, including himself, who are from about 5 years in the future. Meaning? I did not know.

Thus, for me, the various unusual background events and characteristics of the novel did not always fit with the rest of the story, nor did they make sense to me. Still, overall, the book was an okay read, I just wish I understood it better.

Should you wish to try another "different" kind of zombie novel, may I suggest my (Steven Woeste) own, To Wake The Dead? It's available on Amazon.com, and even published by the same company (iUniverse) as Every Sigh, The End.