The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break: A Novel [Paperback]

Steven Sherrill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

Five thousand years out of the Labyrinth, the Minotaur finds himself in the American South, living in a trailer park and working as a line cook at a steakhouse. No longer a devourer of human flesh, the Minotaur is a socially inept, lonely creature with very human needs. But over a two-week period, as his life dissolves into chaos, this broken and alienated immortal awakens to the possibility for happiness and to the capacity for love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull supposedly slain by Theseus in the labyrinth, is actually working as a cook at Grub's Rib in a small town in North Carolina. Or so Sherrill conjectures in his clever debut novel, which thrusts the fabulous beast into the kitchen sink realism of 1990s America. In Sherrill's bold imagination, the Minotaur is no longer angry or ferocious, having been worn down by 3,000 years of history. Although people are often startled by his horns, the blue-collar world in which he now exists quickly adjusts to his presence. Sweeny, the owner of the Lucky-U trailer park where the Minotaur lives, employs him part-time to repair cars. The Minotaur spends his free hours watching his neighbors, among whom are an amateur muscle freak, Hank, and his sexy wife, Josie. At the restaurant, the other employees accept the Minotaur as he is, except for Shane and Mike, a duo of obnoxious young waiters who also razz David, the restaurant manager, for being gay. The Minotaur is sometimes hindered physically in the human world; his eyes, for example, are separated so broadly by his snout that he has to cock his head to one side to really look at something. Sherrill also insinuates other mythological beasts--the Hermaphroditus, the Medusa--into the story, suggesting how the Southern landscape is shadowed by these myths. The plot centers around the Minotaur's feelings for Kelly, a waitress who is prone to epileptic fits. Does she reciprocate his affections? As the reader might expect, the course of interspecies love never does run smooth. Sherrill's narrative, with its dreamlike pace, shows myth coexisting with reality as naturally as it does in ancient epic. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

The Minotaur, having endured 5000 years of immortality, is currently living in a trailer park in the Deep South, working as a line cook in a restaurant. His appearance is more monstrous than his behavior, which is more humane than that of most of his co-workers. Coping within the limitations imposed on his existence--horns that are deadly, inarticulateness, a disproportionate body ill-adapted for clothes--the Minotaur has learned to sew and become an expert auto mechanic and a superb cook. It is dealing with people that poses the greatest difficulties. When love becomes a possibility, he must negotiate a path, threatened by the malevolence of the restaurant waiters and supported by the kindness of his landlord and friends. First novelist Sherrill skillfully creates a world in which the reader is more than willing to suspend disbelief to see the man in the monster and the monstrous in all of us. Recommended for larger public libraries and academic fiction collections.
-Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 313 pages
• Publisher: Picador (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312308922
• ISBN-13: 978-0312308926
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #431,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chill out, January 28, 2005

By 

C. Trew (Nola) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break: A Novel (Paperback)

I'm not a big English-writing-jargon-blahblahblah kind of guy, so statements like, "the over characterization of the mid-plot, doesn't even fit in with his standard style of the Victorian age." Whatever. I'm here to say that if you are looking for a fun book that is quick to read, buy this book. I liked it a lot. It made me smile. And I hate smiling.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a book worthy of praise, April 10, 2000

By 

Matt Angle - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (Hardcover)

If you read any synopsis of this book, you'd probably think, "Wow, how odd." Well, you'd be correct. However, putting the book down and not reading it because of that would be a grave mistake.

As debut novels go, this is certainly one of the better. It is not large, perhaps 350 pages, has a focused scope, great characters, and great writing.

Steven Sherrill's poetry background is evident in the book, but you certainly don't have to be a poetry lover (I'm not) to enjoy it. His writing is gorgeous, interspacing long lyrical lines with brief five word sentences. His descriptive talents are amazing. As one who worked in a restaurant in high school, I can say that the sights, sounds, and events that take place at the Minotaur's work are exactly correct.

Sherrill uses humor and humanity to great effect and by the first few pages of the novel, I did not find it strange at all that a creature with the head of a bull and body of a man was coexisting with humans in the modern South. I found myself identifing with some of what the Minotaur goes through, and found myself rooting for him.

If you've ever thought about taking a chance on a new author, this book is an excellent choice. It will make you smile and at the same time make you wonder about what it is to be fully human.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best 1st novel since "Ghostwritten", January 5, 2005

By 

Paul Baerman (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break: A Novel (Paperback)

I didn't pick up this book the first time I saw it because I assumed it would have a one-joke plot; my wife read it first and persuaded me to give it a try. It turned out to be one of the finest contemporary novels I've read in years.
Sherrill never loses compassion for his protagonist despite his gleeful mastery of the Southern grotesque style--rather like Flannery O'Connor, come to think of it. The minotaur, known simply as "M" to his friends (shades of Kafka?), is more humane than some of the humans, good-natured, fallible, groping toward connection with the strange and numerous race of homo sapiens around him. His efforts, missteps, failures and yearnings echo those of every Outsider in literature and life.
Are we not all half-human, half-beast, struggling to make our thick tongues give voice to our deepest beliefs and longings?
I laughed, I cried, I passed it on to a friend.