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Title details for Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur - Available

Little Monsters

by Adrienne Brodeur
Jason Culp
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
A National Bestseller!

"Juicy...simmers with tension as secrets explode out into the open." —The Washington Post * "So alluring...I raced happily through the pages." —The New York Times Book Review * "Compulsively readable." —Vogue * "An absolutely captivating read." —Elin Hilderbrand

From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets.
Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings' lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother's goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.

As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he's determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn't make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.

Set in the fraught summer of 2016, Little Monsters is a "smart, page-flipping novel...[with] shades of Succession" (The Boston Globe) from a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 27, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797160580
      • File size: 325041 KB
      • Duration: 11:17:10

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 22, 2023
      Memoirist Brodeur (Wild Game) sets this shimmering novel in the “white-hot mess” of summer 2016. Adam Gardner, a stodgy and sleepless oceanic research scientist on Cape Cod, is not looking forward to his upcoming 70th birthday. In a decisive moment, he stops taking his lithium—prescribed for his bipolar disorder­—in hopes that without the medication he will unlock the secret to how whales communicate with each other. Brodeur alternates Adam’s story with those of the son and daughter he’d raised on his own after his wife died prematurely. Ken is a shrewd businessman and political hopeful hobbled by his pomposity, while Abby is a struggling artist. Both are highly esteemed by their father. By the time of Adam’s birthday party, he’s become newly inspired and “hyperaware” of his life and surroundings. What was supposed to be a normal family event crumbles beneath the weight of hidden animosities, secrets, lies, and buried childhood trauma, all of which play out amid the festivities. Sound character development and a keen sense of place add to Brodeur’s astute portrayal of the turbulence between the siblings and their spouses, and the prose renders Adam’s magical thinking with precision (“Adam felt certain that every book he’d ever read, every piece of art that had ever moved him, every conversation, creature, curiosity, and concept he’d encountered in his lifetime would align like cherries in the slot machine of his mind”). With this intricate story, Brodeur distinguishes herself as a novelist of the first rank.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Family dynamics reach a new level of complication in this audiobook, and we hear from each member of the Gardner family through a dedicated voice. Jason Culp is authoritative and sharp-elbowed as patriarch Adam, even as that character battles personal demons. Matt Pittenger captures son Ken's arrogance and insecurities with deft vocal nuances. Cassandra Campbell's Abby veers into a plaintive tone as she copes with her father's and brother's demands. Joy Osmanski and Allyson Ryan portray secondary characters, but their performances are equally convincing; both narrators are no-nonsense and confident in their respective deliveries. Dialogue is seamless and well delineated. Transitions among all these voices--each with its own chapters--are often abrupt, but the audiobook is, overall, an enjoyable and easy listen. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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