Customer Reviews

Love in Infant Monkeys: Stories

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Lydia Millet has received a lot of praise for her work and is seen by many as one of the best writer's in the U.S. Stepping into her world for the first time with her collection of stories, Love in Infant Monkeys, shows a writer willing to take risks in her material. The collection revolves around animals, be they pets, circus elephants, or even the lions from the movie Born Free. Millet further layers the collection with real life celebrities or historical figures so in the course of the book we see David Hasselhoff, hear the musings of Madonna, learn of the religious leanings of Thomas Edison, and witness a confession from former President Jimmy Carter -- and there are more. Many of the stories are based on true stories of animals with famous people, although Millett takes artistic license and uses them as springboards.

The result is a strong, if uneven, collection with the famous names at times proving to be a distraction and at other times an annoyance. The book opens with Madonna pondering a range of ideas as she looks over a dying pheasant she has shot in "Sexing the Pheasant." The animal here serves as a catalyst for her thoughts, but the focus is on Madonna and her musings on celebrity life, her husband's friends, and her attempts to conquer English phrases. Madonna is such an easy target to make fun of that she is hardly worth the effort; this story could be written by some talented undergrads with a sense of humor.

Such entries are frustrating when you see Millet's skills in a story such as "Sir Henry," a moving tale of a dog walker who is forced beyond his dog world when he suddenly recognizes humanity which rises to the level of, well, dogs. Sir Henry, a dachshund, belongs to a famous performer, but this means nothing to the dogwalker. He likes the dog because of the dog itself, not any association. He walks the dog with "Blackie," who belongs to a dying violinist who asks the walker to take the dog after he dies, which by the violinist's own admission will be soon. The request goes against the walker's own protocol, but he is moved enough to consider it and begins to see the violinist and his caretaker in a new light. We do not hear the final decision, but it is the questioning which is enlightening. Toward the end of the story Millet reveals that Sir Henry's absent owner is David Hasselhoff, who bestows some glancing attention on the dog when he accidentally meets up with the walker in the park. The walker hears the excited reactions of those around him, but is clearly not moved by the connection. The question is, why throw this diversion in what is an otherwise strong story. Millet shifts the reader's attention in a way the dog walker himself escapes, and the rationale is not clear.

Millet does better with less "celebrity" people such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Although not as well known today, Tesla was a influential inventor who counts the radio among his creations. Millet focuses on his death as debt laden scientist living out his life in the Hotel New Yorker. Tesla develops a moving relationship with one of the maids, and the story is told from the viewpoint of another maid who knew both of them. In the story Tesla is devoted to pigeons who share his apartment, causing the maids to spend extra time with the man. Millet's building of the relationship is as light and touching as the relationship itself. That Tesla was famous does not impact the story significantly. Instead of celebrity watching we simply see humans at their best as they try to help one another. Millet has a gift for finding emphasizing the human emotion without cheapening it, in part because the animals serve as a foil to the human characters (and at times this is reversed).

Humor is also an important part of the collection, and is best seen in "Jimmy Carter's Rabbit," which takes on Carter's famous oar defense when a rabbit swam toward his boat at one point during his presidency. As a former President, Carter pays a surprise visit on a childhood friend who is now a psychologist. As children they were involved in an incident which caused the boy and his family to leave the town, and Carter has come to offer a belated apology. The humor comes as the psychologist tries to figure out Carter's real reason for visiting in what is a clearly an attempt not to focus on the incident Carter wants to discuss. A similar sense of avoiding reality shows up in "The Lady and the Dragon" where a billionaire Indonesian businessman purchases a Komodo dragon who had bitten Sharon Stone's husband at a zoo. The businessman hopes to use the animal to meet Stone, with whom he is obsessed, and when one of his employees cannot contact the real one he instead hires a sexually willing substitute.

The title story uses the real life experiments of Harold Harlow on monkeys as its basis. While Harlow is going against his colleagues in the 1950s and calling for mothers to be more loving, he gets his theories by isolating and thus torturing monkeys. While he claims no love for the monkeys, he pushes away his nightmares about the animals by drinking too much. With his own wife dying at home he spends all his time on his work, and the story ends with the nightmare of a mother monkey screaming for her baby. "He knew the feeling of loss that would last till she died."

Overall we can see Millet using the animals as a way for us to see ourselves differently. She shows a respect for animals most writers do not have by showing they are worthy of our attention as they are. In addition, as Millet any pet owner knows, animals often show us more about ourselves than we are comfortable knowing.

Without doubt, this is the best collection I have read so far this year. The stories are smooth and insightful, soulful and compelling. As with her novels, Millet uses historic and pop culture elements from the 20th Century as a means of creating stories that are surprisingly personal and deeply contemplative. In a sentence: Millet knows how to ransack the details of my life--especially as it relates to movies and tv I watched as a kid--and make art out of it. (As I've not yet been able how to configure my signature as my real name: Todd Pierce).

Each of the stories in Lydia Millet's Love in Infant Monkeys will remain in images long after you've read them, be it the dove, Madonna, or those infant monkeys. She is a writer of imagination, linking humans with animals--or birds--in extraordinary and movng ways.

I admire the way Millet writes so confidently about pop culture. I laugh at her portrayals of Madonna, David Hasselhoff, Noam Chomsky, Jimmy Carter, et al. The stories could be deeper and more satisfying, but that's not what Millet is trying to do.

Any collection that starts with a story told from the perspective of Madonna hunting pheasant, I will probably love. And while that first story is probably the least like anything I've seen before which, for me, is always a pleasant discovery, the other stories step away from cleverness toward humanity, and it's there that the real rewards are found. Humanity is examined through a semi-tame lion and a giraffe, through a dog walker and his charges ("The poodle was stately, subtle and, like the dachshund, possessed of a poise that elevated it beyond its miniature stature."), through Thomas Edison's obsession with an electrocuted elephant ("This is my gift to you: I will never forgive: Now and forever, you are not forgiven."), through Nikola Tesla and his beloved pigeons, through monkeys tortured for the sake of science ("To know how love works, a scientist must study its absence."), through Noam Chomsky's sadness at the memory of gerbils lost, through Jimmy Carter's regret toward an unsaved cat ("I had no doubt that the rabbit had affected his conjugal performance.") and, in the last two stories, it is found in zoos and aviaries. I love nothing more than the lens of the absurd illuminating the everyday in surprising ways, and this book does that throughout. It is the feeling of being surprised at finding exactly what is expected.

This collection of short stories has a peculiar mix of celebrities and animals. Some border on charming, such as Sexing the Pheasant (Madonna goes pheasant hunting and has a hilarious inner dialogue, complete with congratulating herself for using proper British slang) and The Lady and the Dragon (a Sharon Stone look-a-like is romanced with a Komodo dragon). Others, particularly the title story, Love in Infant Monkeys are disturbing and leave a bad taste in your mouth. So I guess I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. I don't think I found as much humor in it as the author intended. It certainly was an interesting theme to build a collection around.

an extremely interesting but vastly different series of short stories featuring imaginary episodes in the lives of prominent people such as Madonna, Sharon Stone.

This collection of short stories put me in mind of Jim Shepard's short works which are the current gold standard. Although not as fully realized as Shepard's odd, gem-like worlds of despair and desperation transfigured by revelation and rare redemptions; these are as close as it gets. Well worth reading and the type of work that leaves one waiting for more.

Lydia Millet will never write a better book than this. Don't get me wrong; hopefully she'll write others just as good - but better? Admittedly I only know three (and finished one) of her previous works, in the review of which I pleaded for the return of the satire the age demanded - and bingo! This little gem combines steely satire with the - I want to say fabulous; fabulist? anyway, partaking of the fable without any glib punchline, though there are morals aplenty to be drawn. So: satirical/fabulist/moralising. And philosophical. But above all funny - and sad. (Funny and sad both; isn't that pretty well the definition of satire - or indeed philosophy, in this day and age - the two ways of apprehending truth/reality?) Anyway, none of my regrets, reservations and strictures about How the Dead Dream happily apply.

In that review I praised Millet as writer (it was the plot that got bogged down) and here she surpasses herself; I personally feel the restraint of the short form works to her advantage. The beauty and aptness of her style are very hard to pin down (isn't style always?) but it is a question of tone above all, which is perfectly judged throughout, for example in the story with a male narrator (#8). Then there's the third-person male voice of the title story (oh, her men!) and of course the lead story, which your reviewer Derek Emerson is so slighting about (while missing the morality); but all her characters are note-perfect - such writing cannot be taught! As to what her stories are about - PURLEAZE! Just read the book! But it is worth noting, I feel, that the book is not solely, or even primarily, about animals; it is about death. What is it about reviewers that they don't pick up on this? is it that they're scared of frightening their readership off, or are they in denial? But remember it's also very funny, and although it's broadly satire it shows great empathy towards its human subjects; farce it's not. Animals figure too, natch, but they are the pretext, the McGuffin; it is us - you, and me - who are the real problem.

Incidentally (or not) this is a beautiful, lovingly produced object and should by rights win Soft Skull an award. Finally there is the little matter of Millet's Canadianness. Ha! don't let that put you off if that's news to you (anyway she's probably naturalised by now, though endearingly she still spells Napoleon with an acute accent) anyway it's my contention that her inner Canadianness bestows 'outsider' status that empowers her pen, a bit like being Jewish - though I'm doubtful if Canadian Jews are doubly empowered(!?). If Cavafy, in EM Forster's famous formulation, 'stood at a slight angle to the universe', Millet is probably at right angles, but from there her vision is unflinching. I was going to say pitiless, but of course there's pity there in spades. Just not for you. Or me. Enjoy!! I must say in all my 67 (next month) years I have never devoured a book so greedily. Saludos and kudos, Millet, from the mother country. And as a little chaser to this 'death' book may I suggest a somewhat analogous work which one might term the 'sex' book, Alessandro Boffa's cumbrously but necessarily titled You're an Animal, Viskovitz. Just don't expect it to be a turn-on...

Millet has done it again, but with some short stories. Thanks for the bedtime laughter.