{"product_id":"scary-monsters-isbn-9781646221097","title":"Scary Monsters","description":"\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize for Fiction\u003cbr\u003e Shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award\u003cbr\u003e Shortlisted for the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize\u003cbr\u003e Longlisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize (UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA profoundly original exploration of racism, misogyny, and ageism—three monsters that plague the world—this novel from a beloved and prize-winning author is made up of two narratives, each told by a South Asian migrant to Australia\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eWhen my family emigrated it felt as if we’d been stood on our heads\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMichelle de Kretser’s electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down, just as migration has upended her characters’ lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLili’s family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager.\u003cbr\u003eNow, 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 neighbor. All the while, Lili is striving to be A Bold, Intelligent Woman like Simone de Beauvoir. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLyle 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree scary monsters—racism, misogyny, and ageism—roam through this mesmerizing novel. Its reversible format enacts the disorientation that migrants experience when changing countries changes the stories of their lives. With this suspenseful, funny, and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Which comes first, the future or the past?”\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize for Fiction\u003cbr\u003eShortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award\u003cbr\u003eShortlisted for the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize\u003cbr\u003eLonglisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize (UK)\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e Best Fiction Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNYLON\u003c\/i\u003e Most Anticipated Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What seem on the face to be two very different stories, but whose power lies in the imaginative work the reader has to do to link them, to find clues to the future in the past. It's a brilliant use of negative space, and contributes to the lasting power of this fine and stereoscopic contemplation of the migrant experience.\" —Alex Preston, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I read \u003ci\u003eScary Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e months ago and can't stop thinking about it. This is a bold, unsettling and beautifully written work.\" —Emily St. John Mandel, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Glass Hotel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStation Eleven\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Michelle de Kretser's brilliant split-form past-and-present dual narrative, \u003ci\u003eScary Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e . . . about perilous times and societal and institutional forms of exclusion, what it does to the human spirit, and how that pressure reforms us.\" —Ali Smith, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Dual narrative looks at the racism and terrifying experiences into which the 'outsider' is thrown . . . What lingers in the mind . . . are the connections she makes between past prejudices and a future society devoid of values or compassion.\" —Lucy Popescu, \u003ci\u003eThe Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e (UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Magnificent . . . A carefully constructed pattern of thematic echoes . . . . [both] stories are filled with unexpected details, apt quick literary brushstrokes and the gleam of humor . . . Terrific.\" —Sam Leith, \u003ci\u003eThe Daily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"The tales are engrossing . . . It’s a powerful portrait of feeling adrift in a hostile environment, suffused with stabs of beautiful description.\" —Siobhan Murphy, \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Language is not benign in \u003ci\u003eScary Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e. It is the sanitization of language that enables this society to enact violence on its most vulnerable. The sweep of de Kretser's critique here includes us all.\" —Gretchen Shrim, \u003ci\u003eThe Australian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In yet another masterful work, de Kretser has pulled out her recipe book and remixed her ingredients into a strong, hallucinatory brew that might make us taste fear and anger before it’s too late.” —Susan Wyndham, \u003ci\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"De Kretser [is] one of our most acute chroniclers of migrant experience, and a savage critic of white Australian complacency.\" —Geordie Williamson, \u003ci\u003eThe Saturday Paper\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ruminative and sly rather than preachy, this novel about complacency and compromise packs a stealthy bite.\" —\u003ci\u003eSlate\u003c\/i\u003e, 1 of the 10 Best Books of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The range and verbal pleasures of de Kretser’s considerable gifts are compelling . . . What unfolds, rife with dark irony worthy of George Saunders, is as banal as it is horrific. De Kretser is a wonderful writer, and woefully underrated in this country. Though her skewering satire is pointed and painful, her gallows humor keeps the reader smiling.\" —Claire Messud, \u003ci\u003eHarper's\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eScary Monsters \u003c\/i\u003eis a provocative and exhilarating game of snakes and ladders.\" —Fiona Gruber, \u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eScary Monsters \u003c\/i\u003ewill resonate most with humans who enjoy a well-told-tale, especially post-modern feminists with a penchant for literary intertextuality.\" —Nanci Nott, \u003ci\u003eArtsHub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"To read Michelle de Kretser's fiction is to sense important details swimming under the surface of our awareness . . . For readers of this novel, the implicit task is to make a seemingly fractured story whole, to locate or construct points of connection between parallel worlds, to warm the pages with our close and imaginative engagement. There is an implied moral dimension to this challenge, but the ultimate result is our readerly delight.\" —Shannon Burns, \u003ci\u003eAustralian Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"De Kretser's cutting wit and dexterous ability to dismantle Australia's rose-tinted idea of itself makes this an inventive, satirical and confronting exploration of the migrant experience. \u003ci\u003eScary Monsters \u003c\/i\u003eis sure to hold strong appeal for literary fiction readers.\" —Carody Culver, \u003ci\u003eBooks + Publishing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Wrenchingly poignant, brilliantly biting, de Kretser provides an indelible, ageless examination of the migrant experience.\" —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"De Kretser, one of our most deeply intelligent writers, offers a book that is wry and heartbreaking, playful and profound.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A disturbing and entirely believable depiction of social upheaval and repression . . . A stirring look at the eerie links between past and present.\" —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In \u003ci\u003eScary Monsters \u003c\/i\u003ede Kretser addresses the weightiest of subjects with the lightest and deftest of touches, and the result is funny, playful, painful, angry, and, above all, ferociously smart. It's a dazzling novel, by a hugely talented author.\" —Sarah Waters\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eScary Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel of luminous intelligence and profound depth, written with verve, humor, and exceptional elegance.\" —Monica Ali\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eScary Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003ci\u003eSecrets of Happiness\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eImprovement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMichelle De Kretser\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her family emigrated to Australia when she was a teenager, and she was educated in Melbourne and Paris. She is the author of five previous novels, including the Miles Franklin Award winners\u003ci\u003e Questions of Travel \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Life to Come\u003c\/i\u003e, the Man Booker Prize long-listed \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Dog\u003c\/i\u003e, and a novella, \u003ci\u003eSpringtime\u003c\/i\u003e. De Kretser now lives in Sydney with her partner, the poet and translator Chris Andrews. She is an honorary associate of the English department at the University of Sydney.","brand":"Catapult","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303775817957,"sku":"NP9781646221097","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781646221097.jpg?v=1767736178","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/scary-monsters-isbn-9781646221097","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}