Main Line Video Clerk Debuting Zombie Novel Next Month

These are halcyon days for the undead. 

The third season finale of AMC's The Walking Dead was the highest-rated single episode drama in basic cable history. Brad Pitt's zombie-epic World War Z, despite a host of production issues and a resulting torrent of negative press, opened to $66 million last weekend. The book of the same name spent months on the best seller list, as did its predecessor, The Zombie Survival Guide.

Bryan Way just hopes the trend continues.

On July 5, Way, 28, is holding a limited release of his debut novel, Life After: The Arising, at Viva Video—where the novelist and aspiring screenwriter pays the bills, for the time being, working as a clerk.

"I'm not projecting myself to be Stephanie Meyer, or J.K. Rowling," Way said from behind the counter of the video store. "Realistically, if I sell 1,000 copies of it, I would be totally satisfied."

The fresh-faced and hyper-articulate Newtown Square resident spent a decade working on Life After, which he said tracks a zombie outbreak, and the ensuing government response, from the vantage point of the Delaware Valley.

Way started the novel as something of a lark—he and a friend on leave from the military each agreed to write part of the story, then patch together what they had—but when his friend returned with just a couple pages and Way had written a few hundred thousand words, the Temple grad figured he was on to something. 

Way researched the novel exhaustively—even compiling a thick CDC packet outlining the pathology of the zombie outbreak.  

"It's just something I did as an exercise for myself so I could keep my conception of the undead consistent while I was writing this," he said, before pausing.

"It's pretty nerdy," he admitted.

A little nerdy? Maybe. But it's that fastidious attention to detail that's allowed Way to, even within such a heavily-trafficked genre, tell a unique story. In fact, part of the novelty of Life After stems from its recognition of, and accounting for, the ubiquity of zombie entertainment. 

"I feel like in zombie fiction, they don't address the fact that a lot of people read zombie books and watch zombie movies," Way explained, adding that, conversely, his protagonist is "obsessed with zombies," and the obsession pays dividends. 

Here's hoping it pays off for the book's author as well.

The Life After: The Arising release will be held at Viva Video, located at 14 W. Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore, on Friday, July 5. Only 100 paperback copies are available at this time and, at the event, will be on sale for $14. For more information, visit the Life After Facebook page here.