Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard
"Green Eyes" is a narrative centered on a research facility at Tulane University that explores the creation of a Bacterially Induced Artificial Personality—essentially, a form of zombie. The study incorporates corpses from a slave graveyard, allowing researchers to investigate the interaction between the deceased and the surrounding soil. The reanimated individuals, all male, are guided by therapists, with a notable focus on enhancing the therapeutic bond through physical beauty and emotional connection. The protagonist, Donnell Harrison, a "slow burner" zombie, develops a profound relationship with therapist Jocundra Verret, who has ties to voodoo traditions. As Harrison discovers his unique abilities, including the power to see auras and heal, he and Jocundra escape the facility, navigating a world rich with supernatural elements. The story intertwines themes of love, magic, and existential struggle, ultimately leading to a confrontation that results in Harrison’s death, leaving Jocundra to grapple with the enduring bond they shared. The narrative blends elements of horror and romance, inviting readers to consider the complexities of identity, love, and the supernatural.
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Subject Terms
Green Eyes
First published: 1984
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—extrasensory powers
Time of work: The present or the near future
Locale: Louisiana
The Plot
A research facility at Tulane University is conducting studies using recent corpses and dirt taken from a slave graveyard where, presumably, the bodies interacted with the soil. The research is an attempt to create a Bacterially Induced Artificial Personality—a zombie. Zombies never have the personality of the person who died; they are helped by their therapist to realize and explain who they are. This help almost inevitably involves sex. The reanimated are all men, and therapists are chosen in part for their beauty.
Jocundra Verret, a therapist who studied voodoo cults before joining the facility, is assigned to the zombie Donnell Harrison. Harrison is a “slow burner,” meaning that he is expected to live longer than many other zombies. Harrison demonstrates remarkable abilities and, with the aid of another slow burner named Magnusson, he comes to understand his situation exactly. Faced with the prospect of living in the facility until an inevitable, horrible death, Harrison—after Magnusson dies, leaving Harrison his notes—persuades Jocundra to leave with him. By this point they are, in most ways that count, in love with each other.
They escape with another zombie, a man named Richmond who causes some major contretemps before dying. After meeting a faith healer called Papa Salvatino, Harrison realizes that his enhanced vision enables him to see peoples auras and heal them. Jocundra and Harrison return to the Bayou area where she grew up, there realizing the truth of her statement that “This worl’ she’s full of supernatural creatures whose magic we deny.
Harrison, testing his powers and realizing that some of the methods and concepts of voodoo—most especially the ti bon ange (more or less the conscience) and the gross bon ange (the undying part, the immortal twin)—map exactly onto his current state. Throughout the final half of the novel, Harrison attempts to use the signs, symbols, and practices of voodoo to keep himself alive. With the assistance of Ms. Otille Rigaud, a wealthy patron with a shady past, he constructs a copper veve in order to focus the energies of his aura. The final third of the novel becomes increasingly convoluted as coincidences pile upon one another and matters that already stretched the readers credibility become conflated beyond all reason.
Ultimately, in a battle of zombies, Harrison dies. Jocundra is left to try to get on with her life, but the final scene of the novel makes it clear that her link to Harrison remains solidly intact well beyond his life.