Survivor Song: A Novel

Paul Tremblay

Jul 2020 · HarperAudio · Narrated by Erin Bennett

About this audiobook

A propulsive and chillingly prescient novel of suspense and terror from the Bram Stoker award–winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts.

“Absolutely riveting.” — Stephen King

In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less. Those infected quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they inevitably succumb. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying, and hysteria has taken hold. To try to limit its spread, the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew. But society is breaking down and the government's emergency protocols are faltering.

Dr. Ramola ""Rams"" Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-thirties, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, a friend who is eight months pregnant. Natalie's husband has been killed—viciously attacked by an infected neighbor—and in a failed attempt to save him, Natalie, too, was bitten. Natalie's only chance of survival is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible to receive a rabies vaccine. The clock is ticking for her and for her unborn child.

Natalie’s fight for life becomes a desperate odyssey as she and Rams make their way through a hostile landscape filled with dangers beyond their worst nightmares—terrifying, strange, and sometimes deadly challenges that push them to the brink. 

Paul Tremblay once again demonstrates his mastery in this chilling and all-too-plausible novel that will leave readers racing through the pages . . . and shake them to their core.

Ratings and reviews

I was excited about this audio book, but it turns out it's awful. The reader may be part of the problem but the vernacular used is so annoying that it's hard to tell which I hate more. I mean it really, really blows. I'm considering buying the actual book just to light it on fire.

Bad voice actor, robotic and untalented. What's worse is the authors toxic lefty politics drips into the story and pollutes all that was good. I regret giving this trump deranged guy and money at all.

About the author

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book Awards and is the nationally bestselling author of Horror Movie, The Beast You Are, The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, Growing Things and Other Stories, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His novel The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into the Universal Pictures film Knock at the Cabin. Another is his first children’s book. He has been teaching high school math for a long, long, time, and he lives outside Boston with his family.