Winner of the 2012 Laine Cunningham Novel Award!Withrow is a sarcastic vampire at a dinner party with his nosy neighbors. Jennifer is a genius in a dead-end job.When the dead rise all around them are they more in danger with those they think they know or out in the streets with a zombie around every corner?Perishables is a book which includes zombies but is not so much about them: instead it's about the lives of the persons who see the dead walk and some of those persons' favorite foods. At turns tense, humorous, compassionate, acrobatic, horrifying and filled with dread, Perishables delivers three stories of a zombie uprising that are independent but interrelated.Perishables tells the stories of those who find responsibility and opportunity thrust upon them. It's about friendships and neighbors and the way everyone feels like an outsider, even insiders; about risk versus reward and the ways the big frights and tragedies we encounter in life make the small ones of every day seem a little better and a little worse. The people of Perishables are not professionals or heroes but they are eager to survive and one of them technically might not be a person at all...Perishables is rich in characters, their relationships and the humor of events gone terribly awry. It's a zombie book unlike any other because it's a book about humanity; that it's also about dessert recipes, jellied beef loaf, mainframe systems and people who annoy us by talking loudly on their cellphones is simply a bonus.