The Love Monster
- Publisher
- Vehicule Press
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2012
- Category
- General
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781550653427
- Publish Date
- Apr 2012
- List Price
- $10.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
The Love Monster is the tall tale of one woman’s struggle with mid-life issues. The main character, Margaret H. Atwood, has psoriasis, a boring job and a bad attitude. Her cheating husband has left her. And none of her pants fit any more.
Marston takes the reader on a hilarious journey of recovery. Hope comes in the form of a dope-smoking senior citizen, a religious fanatic, a good lawyer and a talking turtle (not to mention Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Warren Zevon, Neil Armstrong and a yogi buried deep underground). And, of course, hope comes in the form of a love-sick alien speaking in the voice of Donald Sutherland.
More than an irreverent joyride, The Love Monster is also a sweet and tender look at the pain and indignity of being an adult human and a sincere exploration of the very few available remedies:art, love, religion, relentless optimism, and alien intervention.
About the author
Missy Marston’s first novel, The Love Monster, was the winner of the 2013 Ottawa Book Award, a finalist for the CBC Bookie Awards and the Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Excerpt: The Love Monster (by (author) Missy Marston)
After you notice the first wrinkle or grey hair, after your husband or wife or child leavesforever, after you have been abducted by aliens, nothing will ever be the same. Everyone knows this.Everything will fall apart, will come undone, will break ranks and head for the hills.
...
Her name is Margaret Atwood. Tha's right. She is no relation, bears no resemblance, has no literary ambitions; she simply bears the same damn good name. She has explained all these things to shop clerks and bank tellers and office nurses throughout her adult life. Yet they persist. In fact, her name is Margaret H. Atwood, but don't ask her about the the "H"?. Really. Never ask.