An exuberant modern-day picaresque about the cost of love-struck obsession and the inevitable monsters of every human heart.
Memoirist of mediocre fame, Charles Homar has a problem: his bride-to-be, Gillian Lee, has nixed their nuptials and fled to the high seas in search of a legendary giant squid, unleashing an unholy heart wreck upon him. In a hell-bent effort to prove his mettle as an American male and win back Gillian's affections, Charlie crisscrosses the nation seeking counsel, confronting creatures both mythic and real—Bigfoot on the Canadian border, space aliens in Seattle, a professional bodybuilder with Asiatic sex slaves in suburban New Jersey, the demons dancing a rumba inside his own heart—and then writing about his travails every week for a popular slick magazine. Echoing a narrative tradition that includes Don Quixote and Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, William Giraldi's debut novel is a love story of linguistic bravado that explores American excess, the diaphanous line between fiction and fact, and what desperate men and women will do to one another.
Busy Monsters: A Novel
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Review
“William Giraldi's Busy Monsters is rammed with life. It has more than promise. A kind of elegiac intensity, remarkable for so young a man, pervades its harmonies.” (Harold Bloom )
“Take the amped-up lyrical braggadocio of the American South and join it to a sly, at times Nabokovian celebration of psychological obsession. Add a pinch of O'Connor, a dash of Hannah, heat with an imagination reared in both the canon and its rock & roll antipodes. Busy Monsters is an unforgettable achievement by one of our most important young chroniclers of anguish and bliss.” (Sven Birkerts )
“Take the amped-up lyrical braggadocio of the American South and join it to a sly, at times Nabokovian celebration of psychological obsession. Add a pinch of O'Connor, a dash of Hannah, heat with an imagination reared in both the canon and its rock & roll antipodes. Busy Monsters is an unforgettable achievement by one of our most important young chroniclers of anguish and bliss.” (Sven Birkerts )
About the Author
William Giraldi's work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Georgia Review, The Believer, Kenyon Review, and Poets & Writers. A senior editor at AGNI, he teaches in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This won't be a negative review, but I must confess that I started Busy Monsters last year and, one chapter into it, set it aside until this month. The writing tried so hard to be clever (for lack of a better word) that it made reading it an ordeal. Upon opening it again, I felt compelled to push through, and I'm thrilled that I did, because I found the story more engaging and the writing more entertaining than I had given it credit for the first time. I think what bothered me at first was my disconnect with the nature of the story; when I realized that I was actually reading Charles Homar's magazine pieces, the style made more sense. And, when I realized that Homar could easily be (and probably was) an unreliable narrator, the style fit even more. This definitely isn't a novel for everyone, and I agree with the reviewers here that noted it often felt like one episode after another with a shiny new quirky character, but I must say that Giraldi produces some of the most original figurative language I have read, frequently leading me to pause, think about the comparison or allusion, and then smile. Busy Monsters definitely has flaws, but the overall product is an entertaining and original work I am glad I gave a second chance.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoyed this book. Most sentences were amazingly inventive and often funny. It is a matter of taste and if you don't love the language or find it amusing then there is not much else to keep you reading. The plot and the characters are okay but all seen through the crazy hero's point of view.
You'll like this book if you like the writing. Any quick sample will be enough to decide. I loved the style and the humor.
You'll like this book if you like the writing. Any quick sample will be enough to decide. I loved the style and the humor.
17 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By Geezer
Format:Hardcover
Of the 9 hysterically positive 5 star reviews, 7 are by first time reviewers. I don't know if that means anything, but it makes me suspicious. I wonder if this book had an editor. The author, or his character, seems to think that cerebellum means "brain," gluteus means "buttock," and that a squid is a fish. Trying too hard to be clever. Giraldi is undoubtedly talented and I will probably give his next a chance.
For language used with nimbleness and flair by another first time novelist, I recommend Benjamin Hale's The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore.
For language used with nimbleness and flair by another first time novelist, I recommend Benjamin Hale's The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Tully
Format:Hardcover
First, let me state that William Giraldi is a talented writer. He has great wit, he says funny things, writes loopy, often hilarious dialogue and, yes, you will probably laugh out loud more than once. There are clever, nicely done comic scenes here as well -- the scene in which the narrator's local priest encourages him to kill the narrator's rival because this will reduce the number of the world's atheists is very funny. As is Groot, the narrator's would-be mentor and sometime government assassin.
But there is no novel here. Most of BUSY MONSTERS is simply over-the-top, self-consciously zany nonsense. Hardly any of the characters are recognizable as actual human beings. Giraldi is simply not grounded here. There is no reality to this book. His tale goes from one ridiculous situation to another, filled with cardboard cutouts instead of people. This sort of thing can be quite funny in a 20-page story or a half-hour comedy skit,but it's not the stuff of which novels are made.
Also, the narrator's obsession with the physical charms of his missing lover is really juvenile. The last time I encountered anyone drooling to this degree over a female's body parts I was sixteen. Some of this is really hard to take.
The best comedy is grounded in reality. If I thought Giraldi was a talentless hack, I wouldn't be writing this review. But he's a talented man, an editor and writer of stories and essays, and he should know better. I hope he has gotten this low-grade comic stuff out of his system. I will check out his next book to see.
But there is no novel here. Most of BUSY MONSTERS is simply over-the-top, self-consciously zany nonsense. Hardly any of the characters are recognizable as actual human beings. Giraldi is simply not grounded here. There is no reality to this book. His tale goes from one ridiculous situation to another, filled with cardboard cutouts instead of people. This sort of thing can be quite funny in a 20-page story or a half-hour comedy skit,but it's not the stuff of which novels are made.
Also, the narrator's obsession with the physical charms of his missing lover is really juvenile. The last time I encountered anyone drooling to this degree over a female's body parts I was sixteen. Some of this is really hard to take.
The best comedy is grounded in reality. If I thought Giraldi was a talentless hack, I wouldn't be writing this review. But he's a talented man, an editor and writer of stories and essays, and he should know better. I hope he has gotten this low-grade comic stuff out of his system. I will check out his next book to see.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Busy Monsters would seem to be one of those "love it or hate it" type books, but I found myself ambivalent about it. It's surely an original enough book, but very self-consciously so. I'm torn between feeling that William Giraldi is a gifted writer with a deep understanding of the human condition and dismissing him as pretentious and someone being clever for the sake of being clever. In other words, the novel has a similar effect on me that many works of modern art do.
The plot of Busy Monsters appears to be an attempt to create a kind of postmodern Odyssey, though compared to Joyce's efforts in a similar vein, Giraldi is straightforward and readable! Charles Homar, the hero/antihero is a not always sympathetic writer trying desperately to win back his girlfriend. Along the way, he stumbles into one absurd situation after another. Here is where the novel, in trying to be original, ends up mimicking many contemporary writers. How many novels, mostly set in Florida, throw one grotesque character after another at the reader?
Almost the entire novel is written in a kind of dialect Giraldi has pieced together from various types of classical literature and modern lingo. I suppose it's clever enough, but when everyone talks this way, it seems silly and unnatural. Of course, Giraldi employs the typical postmodern tactic of self-reference to deflect criticism. In the book, someone criticizes Homar's own writing for this very reason -all of his characters sound alike. So, since the author knows he's doing it, and is obviously doing it on purpose, it must be justified and even brilliant, right? Well, if you say so.
Despite these criticisms, I mostly enjoyed Busy Monsters and laughed here and there.... Read more ›
The plot of Busy Monsters appears to be an attempt to create a kind of postmodern Odyssey, though compared to Joyce's efforts in a similar vein, Giraldi is straightforward and readable! Charles Homar, the hero/antihero is a not always sympathetic writer trying desperately to win back his girlfriend. Along the way, he stumbles into one absurd situation after another. Here is where the novel, in trying to be original, ends up mimicking many contemporary writers. How many novels, mostly set in Florida, throw one grotesque character after another at the reader?
Almost the entire novel is written in a kind of dialect Giraldi has pieced together from various types of classical literature and modern lingo. I suppose it's clever enough, but when everyone talks this way, it seems silly and unnatural. Of course, Giraldi employs the typical postmodern tactic of self-reference to deflect criticism. In the book, someone criticizes Homar's own writing for this very reason -all of his characters sound alike. So, since the author knows he's doing it, and is obviously doing it on purpose, it must be justified and even brilliant, right? Well, if you say so.
Despite these criticisms, I mostly enjoyed Busy Monsters and laughed here and there.... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Read for Writers
This is the equivalent of a linguistic high-wire act. No safety net. No hesitation. William Giraldi's unbridled reveling in the language — and his own imaginatively audacious... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mark O'Brien
4.0 out of 5 stars
Busy Monsters
I will admit that a great first line is all that is needed to cause me to continue reading a book. Surely, I'm not the only one that's been drawn into, for example, "Fahrenheit... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Jason Hensel
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oddly weird or weirdly odd? I cannot decide.
This is the oddest or weirdest book I have read in years. It was kinda boring and very long but at the same time I kept reading it and wondering why. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Spicejar
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste YOUR time or money.
Karma be damned, I can't stand by and watch books such as this that people "like" because the "New York Times Book Review" tells them to like it get glowing praise. Read more
Published 10 months ago by D. A. Higgins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Busy Monsters, Indeed
Oh, how I loved this book!
I think Busy Monsters has been likened to Joseph Heller's Catch-22 for its comic-tragic vim. Did I just use the word vim? Read more
I think Busy Monsters has been likened to Joseph Heller's Catch-22 for its comic-tragic vim. Did I just use the word vim? Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jennifer Spiegel
2.0 out of 5 stars
Boring Monsters
Wonderful premise of losing a love and fighting to get it back with oddball encounters, but this book fell way short for me. Read more
Published 18 months ago by NickisratingstuffonAmazon
5.0 out of 5 stars
best best best!
by far the best book i have ever read other than Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr. i adore this book, i borrowed it from the library and am considering accidentally "losing" it... Read more
Published 19 months ago by kbarbee1215
4.0 out of 5 stars
Homar's Oddity
This is a nice little post-modern Odyssey for our time. Our hero, Charles Homar, the lapsed Catholic and mildly famous memoirist, meets and falls in love with the giant squid... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Diziet
1.0 out of 5 stars
Probably a three star, but it bored the hell out of me.
Literary horse manure. However, if the book is a satire of the literary genre, rather than a literary novel, I'd give it three stars. And yes, I'm aware of the irony. Read more
Published 20 months ago by April
