N is for Naomi
“Half African American, half Japanese, Naomi could still pass for a model if it weren’t for her empty eye socket and the way the right side of her face sags.”
Naomi is one of the regular members of Undead Anonymous, the zombie support group Andy attends twice a week. Naomi reanimated after dying at the hands of her husband, who came home from a bad day at the golf course and took out his frustrations on Naomi with a Titleist four-iron.
Much like Carl (and to a lesser extent Tom and Helen), Naomi plays a minor supporting role in Breathers, frequently sparring with Carl and calling him out when he disparages Rita or when he caps on Tom for being a vegetarian. She’s feisty and opinionated and won’t back down from a challenge. She’s also a smoker who likes to put her cigarette out in her empty eye socket.
I’ve had a couple of readers ask if Naomi’s mixed race heritage was done on purpose to show that discrimination against zombies crossed all lines regardless of sex or race or religion. While it’s true that Naomi represents the only “minority” in the book (other than zombies), her racial make-up wasn’t attributed on purpose or to promote an agenda. When I first wrote her name on the page and she came to life as a character, I simply saw her as part African American and part Asian, a woman who’d had her beauty and her life taken from her. She didn’t symbolize anything specific.
(Next entry: O is for Oscar)
