Customer Reviews

Monkey Beach

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this author give a talk at Powell's sometime in the fall, so I was very excited to see the book available. In person she was fabulous- very funny and interesting, talking about how she wrote the book. Then I read the book, and I was not disappointed! It is kind of dark and yet funny at the same time, set along the coast of, I think, BC. The main character looks back over her life and eccentric family (including crazy cousin Mick, an Elvis fanatic) as they search for her brother, missing off of a commercial fishing boat. There are visits from Big Foot and other "ghosts," and, all in all, I loved it. It was one of those reads where I hate the book to end, and I miss the characters! Really excellent.

Eden Robinson has written a quietly engrossing novel about life on the coast of British Columbia, in the small Haisla town of Kitamaat. Lisa Marie (named after Elvis Presley's daughter) has a gift: she can see spirits, even if she does not understand them. Most troubling, she is visited by a little man with red hair who seems to appear at night in her bedroom just before disaster strikes. But this novel is not about Lisa and her visions of Sasquatchs and talking crows; MONKEY BEACH is about the tender bonds forged in life. Her beloved brother Jimmy has disappeared at sea, and the family can only wait for news. Lisa finds herself looking backwards for answers - in the deaths of her favorite uncle Mick and her grandmother, and in her own and her brother's lives. Through these extensive flashbacks, we begin to understand not only the significance of Jimmy's disappearance but also those he has left behind.

Although I found the ending vaguely disappointing, I enjoyed reading this skillful account of a Haisla family. You can count Eden Robinson in with the more famous names of Louise Erdrich, David Treuer, Susan Powers, and Leslie Marmon Silko as an honest portrayer of First Nation life. Her talents are rich and varied, so I expect to see many more books from her in the future. Readers of literary fiction won't be disappointed.

Robinson's book is a great "modern" fairy tale that deftly weaves the sad truth about Native Americans such as reserve life, alcohol, poverty and residential schools with an interesting twist of old mythology. There are liberal doses of hard reality such as broken lives due to substance abuse and hard living mixed in with flights of fancy about the "sasquatch" said to be living in the coastal area in the Queen Charlotte islands.

The book captures the crisis moment for a native family when they are told their son's (who is portrayed as somewhat of a golden child) boat has disappeared off of the coast. The family's story, along with most of the village, is told in a series of intertwined flashbacks that really demonstrate Robinson's excellent narrative skills.

I won't spoil anything else in the fine tale but would highly recommend the story. Anyone who has read Silko, or even De Lindt, will likely enjoy this tale. Those who have recently taken "authentic Indian names" and are looking to exploit more "Indian culture" will likely be disappointed by the fact that Robinson's book really fits in with more "mainstream" works such as Pynchon and Nicholas Christopher. Perhaps we need a new "cubbyhole" called "Native American Dark Urban Fantasy"?

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Eden Robinson's first novel is as intriguing as it is fun. The greatest strength was the detail with which she fleshes out each character, even those more minor characters. Her brother Jimmy, her friends Frank, Pooch and Cheese, her cousin and grandmother, even Spotty the crow has a personality! The incidents seem almost real-life like the father's ill-fated attempt to raise chickens. These are characters who grow on you and stay with you. The setting in Canada among the Indian population is fresh; and Eden mines the pastoral description to give a real sense of place in the book. The mystical aspects of the story are intriguing, the forboding little red-haired man that shows up and sits on the dresser. I was a bit confused by the ending, but I have my theory which I will grace you by NOT sharing here! Read the book to see! I think you'll find universal appeal, individuality, and certainly enough suggestion to keep you glued to the page.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson begins at the end and opens up to take you on a spirally path of a few days' journey that stretches over a child's lifetime. Before you know it, you are connected to the family and the village of Haisla people, and you get a first-hand observation of this family and their tangled lives. The language Robinson uses, skillfully raw, but always making its point felt, gives you an intimate sense of the culture of the book's inhabitants. It is a story well-told, deeply moving, highly absorbing, and alive every moment. It is a treat to those of us who grew up in a different world to learn about a culture, not so unlike the rest of North America, yet with its own disfunctions and foodstuffs and myths. It is also a treat to have such a fine writer as Eden Robinson take her story and give birth to it in print to share it with us. I appreciate the other-world connection and Robinson's use of it as real, tangible. My favorite line in the book is: "As I drove away, I felt deeply comforted knowing that magical things were still living in the world."

I grew up 20 miles from where this story is set. It brought back many wonderful memories of youthful summers and listening to stories at my Mamaoo's knee. Robinson's description of Kitamaat and village life is dead on! Her vibrant, discriptive narrative allowed me to travel back in time, when my Grandparents would come to visit on their seiner and would tie up at Kitamaat. If you are interested in contemporary First Nations life, Robinson is the woman to write it. I look forward to her next novel.

Robinson's psychologically intense novel pulls you into a world of mystery, family heartache and fragmentation, and the magic of nature and spirit. Is she hinting at Shamanistc rites with LisaMarie's abilities to interact with the magic little man who foretells the future? The Crows who speak to her as well as the dreams she learns to understand? Through the deft use of narrative shift, weaving her way back and forth through time, Robinson takes us on a journey of the human spirit seeking redemption and healing.
This novel brings one to the brink of despair and back again, tantilizing us with hope while scouring cultural politics with the broken language and narrative take expresing the marginalization of the Haislan People. The magic of Elvis, Sasquatch, and Language makes this a novel of intensely bewildering power. Quite reminiscent of Beloved and Ceremony, Robinson leaves the reader haunted and gasping at the same time.

Excellent book. I read this book in a few nights and could not put it down. I finished reading it last night and could not go to sleep for about two hours. I was still thinking about the main characters and the reality of living on a Native Indian reserve. The BC coast and Native Indians are so well describe that I often forgot that this story was fiction and not a real event. Can't wait for this author's next book. I will definitely read this book again and again!

Monkey Beach is the most original and entertaining novel I have read in recent memory. It was a suprise that, despite the less ordinary setting of a native community in northern BC, so much of the coming-of-age scenario was evocative of my own. Unlike my usual life, however, after finishing the book I continue to see giant cedars, mist rising on the water, and little red-haired men at the edge of my sightline. It really stays with you.

I was riveted to these characters, and to the skillful interweaving of past and present, and spirit world with human world. As a resident of the Queen Charlotte Islands several months out of the year, I found the author's descriptions of life here totally right on and fascinating.

I was confused by the ending, and I don't honestly know what happened to the characters in the end. That was terribly disappointing, since at that point I really cared about what happened to them.