Customer Reviews

The Nature of Monsters

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Is this a modern retelling of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises? That's what I keep asking myself after reading Malfi's beautiful, sad, and unnerving The Nature of Monsters. The similarities: Robert Crofton may not be physically impotent like Jake Barnes, but his emotions are kept in constant check, repressed and unexamined. Out of his element, a Kentuckian expatriated (like Jake?) to Maryland, he's thrown among socialites, wicked with their wit and their money and their scheming, and struggling through life in an alcohol haze. He has unsure feelings for Donna, a vibrant woman reminiscent of Lady Brett, who's engaged to be married and having affairs to ease her boredom; lunatic friends that offer us the telltales of life and love and passion only to fall apart; even perhaps boxing instead of bullfighting. And Malfi's style is all about efficiency and precision; there is more said in any one of his sentences than you'll find in pages and pages of the majority of novels out there.

But Malfi is no mere imitator. His eye is focused on our world now, and he pulls the rug out from all our expectations; this is not The Sun Also Rises. This is not a lost generation moving nowhere but a generation on the verge of combustion.

And the prose plays in careful understatement, in the silences between a quiet drum beat, a hesitant bass line, a careful structuring of repetition that hypnotizes, creating tension while it lulls us in to the narrator's unreliable vision. This is the kind of book where I mark passages for their beauty, for their wit, for those stark and horrible moments Malfi creates with such unselfconscious poignancy that I'm humbled.

In the end, I was uncomfortable, torn, betrayed, crushed, and yet grateful for Malfi's eye that is so carefully watching our world. Read it and then read it again.

One of the guidelines for writers to write well is for them to "write what they know". Clearly, Malfi knows people, and more than a little about boxing.

This is not an edge-of-your seat novel. This is not a novel that Oprah will be pushing anytime soon. This is a real, hard, brilliant chunk of writing. It is a novel I had a hard time putting down. "Monsters" immerses you in the perspective and relationships of the protagonist with consummate craft, and the strange circumstances which dominate his life for much of the book seem to be happening to you.

The characters are believable, and horrible in their believability. The title is truly apt.

I would readily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Jonathan Lethem, Ernest Hemmingway, or Kendall Watson.

I continue to be amazed by Malfi's dexterity as a writer. Regardless of the topic or style of a book, he breathes life into characters that cannot be ignored. I wasn't so sure I'd enjoy a book about boxing and misplaced affections but I'm always fascinated by people and why they do what they do. In The Nature of Monsters Malfi explores just how cruel people can be and, of course, they do the worst to themselves. It's poetically poignant yet utterly real and unsentimental. With a nod to the classics this novel has a timeless feel, a genuine good read without gimmicks.

"I'll bet Jesus drank like a g-----n Irish sailor," Sweeny said. "I'll bet He turned water into wine and kelp into marijuana and frigging matzos into high-octane cocaine.... I'll bet He called everyone around the table during the Last Supper and showed them how to turn their lousy cod platters into strips of veal and venison and fat cuts of juicy sirloin.... Jesus Hector Christ can throw a hell of a party." -- from The Nature of Monsters

Author Ronald Damien Malfi has chosen to possibly interrupt his rising-star status in speculative fiction, and follow his acclaimed novels The Space Between (science fiction) and The Fall of Never (gothic horror) with a leap in another direction entirely: the classicist literary fiction of The Nature of Monsters. Turns out it was a solid decision, because this is one terrific book.

Robert Crofton moved from his home state of Kentucky to experience the big-city life of Baltimore, write a book, and rekindle his childhood friendship with Rory Van Holt; "Roaring" Rory is now an up-and-coming boxer with a terrific future ahead of him. Robert soon gets swept up into Rory's Algonquin Round Table-style group of rich and powerful (and blithely cruel) friends.

The only other person Robert knows in town is his often-obnoxious cousin Nigel Sweeny, and when Sweeny falls in love with Rory's fiancée, Donna Taylor, it threatens to throw off Robert's already-precarious balance and send his life into a tailspin. It's a situation that can only end in tragedy.

The boxing subplot recalls books and films from the first half of the twentieth century (Robert composes on an Olympia manual typewriter), but Malfi approaches his characters with a modern sensibility (Rory carries a tiny cell phone). Also, their relationship mirrors that of Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, all of which serves to give The Nature of Monsters a timeless feel, though it is undisputably a modern novel. It is the story of the crossing of the haves and the have-nots, of the consequences of selfish decisions, of the actions of people placed in uncomfortable situations against their will, and especially of weak men and the women who control them (although neither is really aware of it), with a surprising finish that recasts all that came before.

I should also mention that this book is the inaugural publication of 5 Story Walkup, a burgeoning publisher that has set itself apart by not doing so obviously. Their tagline, "We publish [ ________________ ] stories," suggests they don't want to limit themselves to anything but the best, in whatever guise it presents itself. Kudos to them for rescuing The Nature of Monsters from its author's file drawer (where it sat for years because, he didn't know how to market a story with no genre) and giving it a chance it might not have had otherwise.

I look forward both to their next choice and to the author's next book. Ronald Damien Malfi has seen the monsters, and they are us.

What I love most about Ron Malfi's writing is the way he shapes and molds his characters. A good writer makes the reader interested. A great writer engrosses the reader and sucks them in.

"The Nature of Monsters" does not disappoint. The characters suck you in and keep you there until the very last page.

I saw bits of people I knew in each character, from Robert Croften to Nigel Sweeny" and everyone in between. When characters evoke emotional responses from the reader, the writer has done his job.

If you haven't read "The Nature of Monsters" DO IT!!! And then go back and read everything else by Ron Malfi that you can get your hands on.