Ordinary Monsters [Paperback]

Karen Novak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2015

A mother's search for her lost son leads her to a most unusual, almost mythical California desert town. Nestled in a hidden valley, Lágrimas is the last stop for a host of eccentric and questionable souls. When Joyce arrives looking for her son on a tip from a hitchhiker who claims to have seen him there, she settles in a bit too quickly for the locals' comfort. Much to her crushing disappointment, the boy she's been led to is not her son, but an emotionally battered teenager who communicates solely through lines from The Tempest. The locals, suspicious of Joyce's intent, believe that she has brought with her the forces of the Owl, a devastating storm that threatens to demolish Lágrimas once every decade. Like a storm, the histories of Joyce and all of Lágrimas' inhabitants come raining down over the course of this riveting novel. Emotionally wrought and ultimately redeeming, Ordinary Monsters is a remarkable story about the sorrow of loss and the gift of healing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Those who miss watching the TV movie-of-the-week may find comfort in Novak's second novel (after Five Mile House), a melodramatic but earnest story about a desperate mother in search of her missing son. Joyce, a Vermont wife, is distraught when her 17-year-old son and his girlfriend run away. One evening, she empties her savings accounts, abandons her husband and heads west, toting photos of her son and his girlfriend. On a tip from a hitchhiker, she aims for Lugrimas, a dead-end California town on the edge of the Mojave Desert. There she meets young Danny, a lost soul who has been taken in by the locals. Danny, quite implausibly, communicates only in sections of dialogue from Shakespeare's The Tempest; out of a desire to mother him, or simply because she lacks any other options, Joyce buys the town's only bar, the Hoodoo, and waits for her son to turn up. She finds solace in the people of Lugrimas, perhaps because they are as desperate and worn-out as she is, though many remain suspicious of her. There's Duncan, Danny's primary caretaker and roughneck owner of a scrap yard; TJ, the Hoodoo's cheery waitress; and a group of hard-drinking regulars who are a quirky, more depressed version of the gang from Cheers. It's no secret that all the elements - from the oddball Lugrimas residents to the angelic Danny - are all carefully positioned to push Joyce down the path to redemption. A burgeoning romance with Duncan and a subplot concerning a murder at the scrap yard fail to generate sparks, but Joyce's overwhelming sense of loss is ably communicated.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (December 15, 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582342911
• ISBN-13: 978-1582342917
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Tempest Reimagined for Modern Times, June 28, 2002

By 

Kristan Ryan (Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ordinary Monsters (Hardcover)

Novak will seduce you with her masterful and engaging retelling of Shakespeare's tale. Her characters, sharply drawn and all too human, will endear themselves to you right off the bat. Like me, you will find yourself only too willing to follow them down every dark and narrow passage they travel. I indulged myself with Ordinary Monsters -- I started reading on a Saturday afternoon and didn't put down the book until I was done. You'll want to do the same.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary, August 6, 2002

By 

Laume "a million shades of green" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ordinary Monsters (Hardcover)

After reading Karen Novak's first novel, Five Mile House, I was extremely excited to start her second. I was not disappointed. Ordinary Monsters captured me instantly and weaved a tale of loss and finding yourself in the most unlikely of places.

The story is about a woman searching across the country for her junkie son who ran away with his equally junkie girlfriend. Her search finds her in Lagrimas, a small out of the way and quiet California town. In Lagrimas, the locals like their anonymity, and some would prefer that Joyce never had settled in and bought their local bar. The story revolves around a few central characters that you'll grow to love and wish the novel could go on for hundreds of more pages.

I loved this book, I only wish she could write faster and give us more amazing novels.

5.0 out of 5 stars simply brilliant, May 28, 2009

By 

Matthew Schiariti (new jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ordinary Monsters (Hardcover)

I'm very much shocked that there aren't more reviews or even ratings for this book. In fact, there's not many reviews or ratings for ANY of Karen Novak's novels and I can't imagine why because they're utterly fantastic and well written and engaging on every level. Five Mile House and Innocence are fantastic stories featuring the same character but are two very different tales. Both are great. Ordinary Monsters is no exception.

I admit I'm not an expert but I'm familiar with 'The Tempest'. In essence that's what this book is, The Tempest but a contemporary version of it.

The book begins telling the story of Joyce, a mother looking for her son who ran away from home. Her search could also be called a flight. A flight from her past mistakes, her broken marriage. A twist of fate leads her to a sparsely populated desert town in California where she has hopes of finding her son but who she meets immediately upon entering the town are a very odd community of people, people who she has more in common with than she knows. The town is populated with people who have ended up there as a result of their own personal flights, it's where they ended up because they had exhausted their options.

While in town Joyce meets and becomes attached to Danny, a strange teenager who happened upon the town at one time and was taken in by the community, but he happens to only speak in likes from Shakespear's 'The Tempest'. She starts to treat him as a surrogate son, a replacement for the one she's lost and is searching for.

During the course of the book, more is revealed about Joyce's past as are the histories of several of the other strongly supporting characters in the book. Each one is sad in their own way but each one is completely and utterly engaging.

The book is rather short at around 270 pages, but it's so rich and well written that it doesn't feel rushed. It feels FULL. Full of the characters that Novak artfully crafts over the course of each page.

I recently purchased her last Leslie Stone novel, The Wilderness and I look forward to getting into that one because I find Karen Novak to be a supremely talented story teller. I noticed that it was published about five years ago and have no idea if she's still writing or not, but I honestly hope she does. If the Wilderness is half as good as her previous books (ORdinary Monsters included) then I hope to enjoy it as much as those.

Ordinary Monsters should definetly be read by more people, it's too good to miss.