Synopsis
“The best literary present . . . has a delicate sweetness that shows through at just the right moments.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World
About William Giraldi
See more books from this AuthorA protagonist with an odd manner of speaking strives to win back his fiancée from a hunter of giant squid.
Aug 19 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelIn his riotous debut novelâup there with, say, James Wilcox's Modern BaptistsâGiraldi tells the story of Charles Homar, a jilted fiancé who embarks on a hilariously ill-advised odyssey to win back his beloved.
May 09 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelA deeply unreliable narrator with a creative, colorful vocabulary details his own adventures in this playful debut novel.
Aug 24 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A Novel“I’ve been told my sentences salsa,” Charles boasts, but he frequently finds himself defending his memoirs against accusations that he lacks “Jamesian interiority and the plotting proficiency of Wilkie Collins.” Another reader complains, “Most of the events in your memoirs occur outside the scope...
Jul 25 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelSummary: A funny look at a journalist on an adventure to capture his love, who is trying to catch a giant squid in her turn.
Oct 06 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelCharlie instantly dislikes him and takes on the role of a knight-errant, jousting to free Sandy from the manipulative man who has succeeded in undermining her scientific training in favor of his non-scientific theories.
| Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelLove-crazed Charlie takes actions that land him in jail, but he can’t prevent Gillian from leaving, which launches him on an a wild cross-country quest to win her back, involving episodes with a Bigfoot specialist, some UFO enthusiasts, ghost hunters, an oversexed body builder and more.
Sep 23 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A Novel("I proffered her my hand, a-tremble," Charles says of his first meeting with Gillian.) "A book that's driven almost entirely by the novelty of its voice will polarize its readership," observed the New York Times Book Review, though most critics enjoyed the narrative's eccentricity.
Aug 07 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelThere's a moment in Busy Monsters when the main character, Charles Homar, is asked if he's a writer, and he deadpans: "I've been told my sentences salsa."
Aug 24 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelFour times a month, this esteemed periodical pays Homar to recount, in majestically baroque language, the various travails that God hath inflicted upon Charles Homar, which include a perpetually dyspeptic father and a stubborn squirrel infestation in his suburban New England home.
Sep 07 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelLikewise, avoiding self-conscious writing, or as Elmore Leonard put it, "If it sounds written, I re-write it," is the golden rule of modern fiction, yet when I read Busy Monsters, I can't help but feel the fun Mr. Giradli had crafting the story and pushing the boundaries of literary convention.
Feb 06 2012 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelSkewering the false bravado of the aughties memoir craze, Busy Monsters also reads a bit like the type of screenplay Wes Anderson might write in the midst of a roid rage, as Charles plots increasingly desperate and ludicrous schemes to win Gillian back.
Aug 24 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelCharlie is speaking with Romp, an oversexed Bigfoot hunter, who it turns out has read Charlie’s memoirs: “Oh, yeah,” he said, pulling on his clothes, “I read that scene.
Sep 23 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelIn an essay, Norman Mailer once said something to the effect that, when reading a writer’s first novel, pay close attention to the first and last lines, since they’re invariably the ones that the novelist showers the most attention upon.
Aug 29 2011 | Read Full Review of Busy Monsters: A NovelAn aggregated and normalized score based on 52 user ratings from iDreamBooks & iTunes