Scary Monsters
by Michelle de Kretser
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Pub Date 6 Jan 2022 | Archive Date 12 Jan 2024
Atlantic Books | Allen & Unwin UK
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Description
Two stories, one novel.
'When my family emigrated it felt as if we'd been stood on our heads.'
Lili's family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager. Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. All the while, Lili is striving to be A Bold, Intelligent Woman like Simone de Beauvoir.
'Which comes first, the future or the past?'
Lyle works for a sinister government department in near-future Australia. An Asian migrant, he fears repatriation and embraces 'Australian values'. He's also preoccupied by his ambitious wife, his wayward children and his strong-minded elderly mother. Islam has been banned in the country, the air is smoky from a Permanent Fire Zone, and one pandemic has already run its course.
Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - roam through this mesmerising novel. Its reversible format enacts the disorientation that migrants experience when changing countries changes the story of their lives. With this suspenseful, funny and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.
Advance Praise
'A novel of luminous intelligence and profound depth, written with verve, humour and exceptional elegance.' Monica Ali
'Written with incandescent moral energy, boundless compassion, and astonishing precision and beauty, Michelle de Kretser's Scary Monsters extends the very possibilities of the novel form. On the contemporary international scene, there are very, very few writers who can match her style, her intelligence, her vision. To read her is to be changed.' Neel Mukherjee
'Bold, spare and completely original, one of the most exciting contemporary novels I've read for a very long time.' Preti Taneja
'Scary Monsters is a marvel. Each of the two very different parts of the novel had me totally riveted, intensely absorbed, wowed by de Kretser's scathing accuracy - whether she's chronicling youth's delights and distortions or a future where prosperity is the new "unethics." It's a wildly remarkable book that unfolds like no other.' Joan Silber, author of Secrets of Happiness and Improvement
Praise for The Life to Come:
'Is it possible we already have the year's best novel? I'll be amazed if anything surpasses this compulsive, exquisitely light-footed narrative...glorious.' Daily Mail
'De Kretser's satirical observations - on the literati, self-congratulation, suburban pretension - are so subtly deboning they remind me of Jane Austen's...The Life to Come deserves all the gongs we can bang for it.' Spectator
'Exhilaratingly good writing...each page yields sparkling sentences and keen observations.' Literary Review
'[de Kretser's] writing captures, with unflagging wit, grace and subtlety, the spiritual as well as physical journeys of people on the move - between cultures, mindsets and stages of growth.' Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781838953959 |
| PRICE | £14.99 (GBP) |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 629472
A challenging and unnerving read. Structured as two novellas, one deals with the present through Lili’s story, and the other with the near future; Lyle’s story.
Both are masterfully written and deal with ‘scary monsters’ all too familiar in our world and scarily possible in the future.
Lili is a language assistant in 1980s Montpelier. She has ambitions to be free, bold and intelligent, a la Simone de Beauvoir, but spend# her time trying to avoid her creepy neighbour in her shabby digs with a shared toilet and timed light switch on the stairs. Misogyny and racism.
Lyle also from Asia works for an authoritarian Australian government dept weeding out ‘unsuitable’ citizens such as anyone even only 25% Moslem. Material ambition, the issue of an aging and dependant relative and uncontrollable temperatures make this vision of the near future a vile prospect, despite the satirical tone.
Thank you to #NetGalley and #Atlantic books for my pre release digital copy.
Plenty to think about here, and to fear, whichever way round you read the stories.
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