Room at the Top, Zombies and Kitchen Sink Gothic

In between reading submissions for Kitchen Sink Gothic I've also been rereading a number of key kitchen sink novels. Imagine my surprise to come across this opening paragraph from one of the most famous:

I came to Warley on a wet September morning with the sky the grey of Guiseley sandstone. I was alone in the compartment. I remember saying to myself: "No more zombies, Joe, no more zombies".

It's not the last reference to zombies either which, in John Braine's novel, Room at the Top, long before George Romero used them as a metaphor for consumerism, are referenced by Joe Lampton for the kind of people he utterly despises. Curiously, it was John Braine's second and far less well known novel, The Vodi, recently reprinted by Valancourt Books, that helped to give me the inspiration for Kitchen Sink Gothic.