"Bold and tender, poetic and stark, this spins an absorbing story of family secrets, dysfunctional sibling bonds, the deep-rooted trauma of grief, and shifting cycles of life."
Set during one seminal summer in Cape Cod against the backdrop of the 2016 US presidential election, Adrienne Brodeur's Little Monsters dissects the secrets and emotional traumas of a dysfunctional family to gripping effect. Driven by complex, troubled characters, it’s a compelling story for fans of family dramas that pack emotional punch.
Adam, an oceanographer patriarch, is about to reach his seventieth birthday after raising his kids as a single dad — his wife died shortly after giving birth to his now-38-year-old daughter. From the off, Adam is established as a conundrum of a character. Far from being entirely likeable, he’s certainly intriguing. Grappling with his mortality, Adam decides to stop taking meds for his bipolar disorder in the hope that will help him bring a huge scientific breakthrough to fruition.
Similarly, Adam’s son Ken is hardly a likeable chap. An aspiring Republican politician and extremely wealthy businessman who’d “just joined the ranks of men who owned the world and could buy whatever they wanted”, Ken presents himself to the world as being 100% self-assured. He also seems utterly devoid of empathy, especially when it comes to his sister Abby. She’s an artist who works in her mother’s former “glorious and free studio space in the dunes”, which is technically now owned by Ken. Pregnant at 38, “for the first time in decades, she was hungry. Instead of wanting to disappear, Abby wanted to be seen.”
As tension between Ken and Abby prickles, as Adam becomes increasingly frenzied, a stranger enters their life. With everyone harbouring secrets, the stage is set for a pulse-quickening public showdown and personal revolutions.
| Primary Genre | Literary Fiction |
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