A savagely smart, darkly comic literary debut, New World Monkeys exposes the false idols of marital tranquillity, small-town idyll, and corp...
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reviews
Jun 27, 2010
Carol
rated it: 
The title is a bit silly, and deceiving: this is a very finely tuned story of a marriage in trouble, a wild boar, advertising, and a small town. I would love to have a conversation with Nancy Mauro to see if her speech is as elegantly crafted and precisely chosen as her writing. An example (in a chapter about observing an elderly woman): "The old woman below is covered in flesh only loosely tacked to the bone here and there, at the elbows and temple and knees...A tangle of veins decorates h
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Dec 16, 2009
Diane
rated it: 
3.0 out of 5 stars Great Writing....but...Not a Story for Me, December 12, 2009
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In NEW WORLD MONKEYS, Lily and Duncan are a Manhattan couple, whose marriage has seen better days. Duncan is in Advertising, and working on a new campaign, and Lily is working on her dissertation. They are headed to upstate New York to a run down mansion that has been in Lily's family for years. On their drive along a darkened roa More...
Mar 10, 2010
Aaron
rated it: 
The dividing line between this book only getting one star and the two I decided on is how beautiful the writing is and how fantastically developed the two main characters are.
The themes and plot of this book revolve around a few very odd things: the accidental death of a wild boar, the discovery of human remains in an otherwise serene yard, attachment to a pedophiliac pervert, and the use of Viet Nam as an image to sell blue jeans. All of these elements combine to tell the story of More...
The themes and plot of this book revolve around a few very odd things: the accidental death of a wild boar, the discovery of human remains in an otherwise serene yard, attachment to a pedophiliac pervert, and the use of Viet Nam as an image to sell blue jeans. All of these elements combine to tell the story of More...
May 06, 2011
Mathew
rated it: 
BANAL, dull, painfully boring I could go on and on about how bad this book is. The tension in the marriage lacks real emotion, the plot is not compelling, and the author appears to be writing a narrative solely to advertise just how pretentious she is. I could car less about the dead bore, the buried body, or the outcome of this couples marriage, and that is largely due to the authors failure to build any suspense. Largely her failings are due to the narrative style she chose. This might have be
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Mar 28, 2010
Roy
rated it:
3-1/2 stars. Not being able to award half stars is the only bone I have to pick with this otherwise fantastic site. Nancy Mauro's New World Monkeys is better than most of the books I've awarded 3 stars to here but not quite in the league of the majority of those I've given 4-star reviews. Alas I had no choice but to either round up or down. This fine debut novel, told in alternating narration, is in short about a married Manhattanite couple that has reached a rocky patch, one they're unwill
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Nov 02, 2009
Joy
rated it:
Ever been pretty much apathetic to a book and yet you can't put it down? That's the dilemma I faced with "New World Monkeys." The book is the story of two married 30 somethings, Lily and Duncan, whose marriage is strained.
Lily decides to spend her summer at the ancestral home her parents inherited while Duncan joins her during the summer several hours north of New York City. The couple accidentally kills a boar their first night and spends the summer lying to the townspeople More...
Lily decides to spend her summer at the ancestral home her parents inherited while Duncan joins her during the summer several hours north of New York City. The couple accidentally kills a boar their first night and spends the summer lying to the townspeople More...
Sep 24, 2010
Amber
rated it:
Marriage to someone you do not like is torture. So much torture that if you write about it and it becomes published and someone like me who reads the jacket will check it out, spend the whole night reading it and feel like she/he has been through the whole tortuous ordeal themselves. Well written in that it kept me up longer than I should have been finishing it but too well written that it made me wish that one of the characters would just break, call it quits so I could feel some sort of satisf
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Mar 04, 2010
Jennifer
rated it:
Manhattanites Lily and Duncan's marriage is falling apart, so they decide that Lily will take up residence in her family's run-down Victorian mansion in a village along the Hudson. There she will work to finish her dissertation while Duncan, an advertising exec, visits on weekends. Village life, the pursuit of Ph.D.s, and the world of advertising (shades of Mad Men), are all mercilessly and amusingly sent up. All library employees will appreciate the antics of the local pervert who finds the
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Mar 15, 2010
Paula
rated it:
any book that has as one of its central characters the town mascot, a wild boar named Sovereign of the Deep Woods, has to be read, take an emotionally removed couple from new york, add the aforesaid porker, some incensed farmers and townspeople, the local pervert, a family skeleton-really!-and let things ferment. I felt like I was in the twilight zone reading this novel, just a little off balance at every turn, until things are so out of control you can't go back. the couple, unlikeable as th
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Oct 01, 2009
Margee
rated it:
Things go from bad to worse for Duncan and Lily, and then keep going. In this darkly comic tale, their marriage is tested as they decide to part during the work-week, as Lily starts fixing up her ancestral pile in upstate NY, and Duncan must return to the city every Monday to toil at his ad agency. A tragic accident involving their Saab and the town's wild boar mascot, the Sovereign of the Deep Wood, is the catalyst as the two drift apart, Lily to her new stalker friend, and Duncan to his new
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Jun 19, 2011
Julie
rated it:
The writing was hep and urbane. The author's voice was original and telling a different story I might have liked it better. There is a couple in a troubled marriage. They hit a wild boar that belongs to a small town bully. The husband has an uptight advertising job. The wife is adrift in her unhappiness and befriends the small town's pervert at the library. I don't know. There are references to Vietnam and a dead body in the backyard. I wasn't in the mood to try so hard to understand what it all
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Dec 22, 2010
Nick
rated it:
After reading about this in a 2009 issue of Writer's Digest magazine, I was lured in by the quirky premise: but thanks to my heavy reading schedule, I missed the original hardcover release. The trade edition came out this past September, and I'm glad I finally had the chance to check out Mauro's highly-praised debut novel.
Duncan and Lily have been married 5 years. Already on the verge of separation, Lily decides to spend the summer at an inherited Victorian home in the small upstate More...
Duncan and Lily have been married 5 years. Already on the verge of separation, Lily decides to spend the summer at an inherited Victorian home in the small upstate More...
May 14, 2010
Rebecca
rated it:
The premise of the book is fine--a couple getting close to divorce spend the summer in an old, family heirloom of a house, and end up killing the town mascot of a boar, digging up the bones of an old family legend, and indulging their craziest urges in order to find themselves again. There's a lot that's right about that premise, but I'm really not fond of the idea that humans need to embrace their innate animals to have true realizations of who they are. I just don't agree, and reading a book t
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Jan 29, 2010
Ellen
rated it:
Strange and gripping. I found the authors descriptions of the strained marriage very nuanced and engaging. I didn't fall in love with any of the characters, didn't really care about them and yet still wanted badly to know what would happen. The parts with Lloyd the perv were superb and thought provoking. As a country person, the descriptions of the feral business world of a NYC advertising agency were distantly amusing but not very meaningful. I'd recommend it as an adventure in reading.
Dec 20, 2009
Jackie says:
This debut novel has already garnered a lot of attention--Publisher's Weekly named it as a "galley to grab" at this year's BEA (Book Expo America). It's hard to find a specific niche to put this in. It's rather dark,grim and disturbing. It's also funny. It's a love story. It's a horror story. It's written with a sophisticated level of language about the most primitive of human desires and deeds. It's not an easy read, but it is a compelling one. I challenge you
This debut novel has already garnered a lot of attention--Publisher's Weekly named it as a "galley to grab" at this year's BEA (Book Expo America). It's hard to find a specific niche to put this in. It's rather dark,grim and disturbing. It's also funny. It's a love story. It's a horror story. It's written with a sophisticated level of language about the most primitive of human desires and deeds. It's not an easy read, but it is a compelling one. I challenge you
Aug 12, 2009
Jackie
rated it:
This debut novel has already garnered a lot of attention--Publisher's Weekly named it as a "galley to grab" at this year's BEA (Book Expo America). It's hard to find a specific
niche to put this in. It's rather dark,grim and disturbing. It's also funny. It's a love story. It's a horror story. It's written with a sophisticated level of language about the most primitive of human desires and deeds. It's not an easy read, but it is a compelling one. I challenge you to read it
niche to put this in. It's rather dark,grim and disturbing. It's also funny. It's a love story. It's a horror story. It's written with a sophisticated level of language about the most primitive of human desires and deeds. It's not an easy read, but it is a compelling one. I challenge you to read it
Jan 26, 2010
Lukas
rated it:
Started great but kind of self-destructed by the end. Maybe this is an intentional parallel with the male protagonist? Either way, the book left me wondering what happened, and not in a good way. The ending felt especially forced, a narrative finale that only ties back thematically by the barest of threads.
Still, the first half was good, building enough momentum to propel me through the end of the book. The end result just didn't make it worth the investment.
Still, the first half was good, building enough momentum to propel me through the end of the book. The end result just didn't make it worth the investment.
Aug 01, 2010
Melissa
rated it:
I was hooked from the first sentence. The vulgarity and evolution of violence act as a lure to keep your attention focused on Duncan and Lily as they struggle to find both themselves and each other. Each of them struggle for control of their own lives until they devolve to the basest of instincts and desires when they finally realize that what they really want is to give up control completely, to go wherever the river takes them.
Feb 12, 2010
Scotchneat
rated it:
Whatever you do, don't kill the town mascot.
This book verged on fantastical but wasn't fully committed. A not-very-nice couple decides to get out of the city and take up summer residence in the old family home. The wife befriends a pervert. The husband drinks a lot and writes advertising copy using Viet Nam to sell jeans.
They aren't sure if they should be together. The townspeople aren't sure they should be there...
This book verged on fantastical but wasn't fully committed. A not-very-nice couple decides to get out of the city and take up summer residence in the old family home. The wife befriends a pervert. The husband drinks a lot and writes advertising copy using Viet Nam to sell jeans.
They aren't sure if they should be together. The townspeople aren't sure they should be there...
Dec 12, 2009
Le Chuck
rated it:
This book was really disappointing. The premise is great and has the potential of being a humerous, yet quirky, mystery/romance novel. Unfortunately it just totally fell apart about midway through. The plots were either resolved sloppily or were left unresolved. I wanted to like the two main characters, but by the end I hated them both. They are both pathetic, as is this book. Sucks. Don't recommend it.
Oct 21, 2011
Anne
rated it:
Read by my book group, it started off as being "quirkily fun" and one of those "yeah, this could freakishly happen to me" books. But at some point, there was the sudden realization, no, this just went too far. Mauro is a talented writer, the writing is beautiful and compelling; the characters are overly flawed, but well developed. Overall, not a great book, but an interesting one to think about.
Aug 24, 2011
Aimée
rated it:
Another book savaged from the last days of my local Borders.....
It surprised me by actually being decent. I had zero expectations and only bought it because I had a gift card to use before they closed.
There were some very entertaining parts and some sections where I was bored. It is definitely a first novel. The plot drops sometimes, but generally picks back up. I did have a bunch of questions as I read, all regarding the progression of the plot.
It surprised me by actually being decent. I had zero expectations and only bought it because I had a gift card to use before they closed.
There were some very entertaining parts and some sections where I was bored. It is definitely a first novel. The plot drops sometimes, but generally picks back up. I did have a bunch of questions as I read, all regarding the progression of the plot.
Jun 22, 2010
Gayle
rated it:
I hung on in this one mostly because I couldn't bring myself to stop before I finished the thing. It was not a joy. The inner and outer lives of the characters made me wonder what kind of world I have aged into. I found no sympathetic character, no insight into anything I wanted insight into, and no resolution of any kind here. This book makes a solitary life look good.
May 02, 2010
J. K.
rated it: 
If you love unique word usage you'll absolutely fall in love with this author. She has a fantastic instinct for writing the very real emotions that flow between men and women in relationships. This story has a quirky bent to it that is very plausible and the dark comedic undertones are wonderfully exquisite.
Just read it!
Just read it!
Jan 18, 2010
Chrystal
rated it:
A weird, mesmerizing, gross book about marriage and the role one plays in it. Such a strange book that I couldn't stop reading it because I had no idea where/what was coming. I keep thinking about it. Spooky. I wonder how many peoples marriages are really like the one portrayed here? Maybe midwesterners are just boring...
Jan 24, 2010
Kriss
rated it:
While the writing style made the book a slow read, I found some of the small city events humorous. It reminded me of good old Baraga, Michigan where I spent time growing up. Where having a live animal as a town mascot and having a group of people showing up on your doorstep at all hours of the night with torches...or flashlights for a vandalzing event was something that really would happen there. It made me remember the not so good ol' days, but in a funny way.
Jan 30, 2010
Allison
rated it:
I admit defeat. 50 pages left in the middle, and I just can't do it. I am calling it done and moving onto other almost-due library books! I thought the premise of this book had a lot more potential than it lived up to.
Not loving the writing style, which I think may be the heart of this book. Read the first 100 and last 50 pages (I do that when I'm not into a book but am curious where the author's going); based on the last 50, I can't imagine anything huge happened in the middle t More...
Not loving the writing style, which I think may be the heart of this book. Read the first 100 and last 50 pages (I do that when I'm not into a book but am curious where the author's going); based on the last 50, I can't imagine anything huge happened in the middle t More...
Aug 10, 2011
Melanie
rated it:
I gave it a good shot, but about a quarter of the way through, I just didn't care about either of the main characters at all. Didn't even like them, really. The story could have kept me going, as the premise seemed interesting, the opening promising. However, the story dragged and stalled. I gave up.
Mar 29, 2010
Nancy
rated it:
Couldn't get into this story. Lily and Duncan are a young professional couple whose marriage is on the rocks. When they leave the big city for their Victorian home in the country, they hit the town's pet boar and kill it. That's pretty much as far as I got -- couldn't get interested.
Jun 23, 2011
Kim
rated it:
Lazy ending, awful characters, and and a touch pretentious. I will admit, there are laugh out loud moments, but for the most part, this book is a bit of a train wreck. You meet a handful of these characters, none of which you sympathize with, and BAM, she ends the book.
