
My Name Is Monster
Katie Hale(Author)
Canongate Books (Publisher)
Published on 7. January 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-78689-636-0 (ISBN)
Description
'Strikingly beautiful' Guardian
'Tough and tender' Joanne Harris
After the Sickness has killed off her parents, and the bombs have fallen on the last safe cities, Monster emerges from the Arctic vault which has kept her alive. When she washes up on the coast of Scotland, everyone she knows is dead, and she believes she is alone in an empty world.
Slowly, piece by piece, she begins to rebuild a life. Until, one day, she finds a girl: another survivor, feral, and ready to be taught all that Monster knows. But as the lonely days pass, the lessons the girl learns are not always the ones Monster means to teach . . .
'Tough and tender' Joanne Harris
After the Sickness has killed off her parents, and the bombs have fallen on the last safe cities, Monster emerges from the Arctic vault which has kept her alive. When she washes up on the coast of Scotland, everyone she knows is dead, and she believes she is alone in an empty world.
Slowly, piece by piece, she begins to rebuild a life. Until, one day, she finds a girl: another survivor, feral, and ready to be taught all that Monster knows. But as the lonely days pass, the lessons the girl learns are not always the ones Monster means to teach . . .
Reviews / Votes
Fresh and powerful . . . Hale's writing is assured and . . . strikingly beautiful . . . Most of all, the book has a great generosity and empathy for monsterdom, and refreshingly allows its characters to find happiness without becoming more ordinary . . . Hale is certainly a skilful writer with a compelling voice, and her ideas are bold and promising * * Guardian * * A terrific piece of writing; tough and tender and insightful. Loved it -- JOANNE HARRIS A complex, accomplished debut. The prose dazzles while the themes of feminism, power and fertility sneak in for a gut-punch. It kept me gripped from the first page, and the characters continue to live and breathe in my imagination -- KIRSTY LOGAN, author of THE GRACEKEEPERS Taut, tough and sensitive, the narrative conjures up a devastated world, inhabited by two intriguing characters, with precision and real atmosphere * * Daily Mail * * Katie Hale has written two fascinating, flawed and compelling characters and, with only two people and an empty world, has created a novel that is gripping, insightful and unique -- CLAIRE FULLER, author of OUR ENDLESS NUMBERED DAYS In a novel in which the entire planet has been devastated, Hale, a poet, narrows her focus right down to the inner lives of her two protagonists and their relationship with each other, dissecting each layer as it is uncovered with delicacy and lyricism * * Herald * * A riveting and disturbing novel, part twisted fairy tale and part dystopian nightmare, in which the primal human need to find meaning and love shines through the darkness of a ruined world -- MICK KITSON, author of SAL Powerful and unflinching . . . This is a humane, tender and often painful exploration of the ways in which daughters consider themselves to be braver, smarter and more independent than their mothers, as well as the strength of love and hope in an empty world. Hale has crafted a gripping and intense dystopian fairytale . . . Beautifully written . . . A must-read * * The Skinny * * Held together by skilful, well-crafted prose . . . Keep[s] the reader hooked to the last page . . . Her writing is superb * * Wee Review * * A gripping study of loneliness and what it can do to your psyche . . . Hale's style means we'll be interested in what she writes next * * Herald * *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
220 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78689-636-0 (9781786896360)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Based in Cumbria, Katie Hale won a Northern Debut Award for her poetry collection, White Ghosts (Nine Arches, 2023). Katie is a former MacDowell Fellow and winner of the Palette Poetry Prize, Munster Chapbook Prize and Aesthetica Creative Writing Prize. Her short fiction has been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. Her debut novel, My Name Is Monster, was published in 2019. She won a Northern Writers' Award for Fiction in 2022 to work on The Edge of Solitude.
@halekatie | @katiescribbles | halekatie.com
@halekatie | @katiescribbles | halekatie.com