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Busy Monsters

3.32 of 5 stars 3.32 · rating details · 438 ratings · 114 reviews

Memoirist of mediocre fame, Charles Homar has a problem: his bride-to-be, Gillian Lee, has nixed their nuptials and fled to the high seas in search of a legendary giant squid, unleashing an unholy heart wreck upon him. In a hell-bent effort to prove his mettle as an American male and win back Gillian's affections, Charlie crisscrosses the nation seeking counsel, confrontin...more

Hardcover, 282 pages

Published August 1st 2011 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published July 25th 2011)

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Sep 29, 2011 Rachel rated it 1 of 5 stars

We have, in Busy Monsters, an unreliable narrator with an un-be-LEEV-ably precious voice. The reader gets absolutely no relief from the narrator's hyper-alliterative, -allusive, -verbose style of expression. All other characters are filtered through him, and therefore speak exactly like him. The fact that Giraldi announces this affected style as his express intention does not make it less irrating. In fact, I hate it when authors do this. I find Giraldi's implication that he could write honest,...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Erin Mccall added it

I had no preconceived notions about this title, it just so happened to make its way home with me from the library. But much like The Sisters Brothers, the narrator’s voice in this novel was overwhelmingly powerful and unique. The main character, Charles Homar, a writer whose regular memoir features in a magazine have made him somewhat notorious across the country, seeks out a grand adventure to win back the heart of his whimsical girlfriend Gillian, who just set out to sea in hunt of her lifelon...more I had no preconceived notions about this title, it just so happened to make its way home with me from the library. But much like The Sisters Brothers, the narrator’s voice in this novel was overwhelmingly powerful and unique. The main character, Charles Homar, a writer whose regular memoir features in a magazine have made him somewhat notorious across the country, seeks out a grand adventure to win back the heart of his whimsical girlfriend Gillian, who just set out to sea in hunt of her lifelong obsession: the giant squid. Charles’ pit stops planned by his marine pal he kindly refers to as Friend for most of the novel are far-fetched and ridiculous, each more bizarre than the last. His voice borders on (okay,that’s putting it nicely because I liked Charles) egocentric, but his self doubt and criticism throughout evened that out, for me at least. I especially loved when Charles would stumble over his tongue. His need for the perfect alliteration for every situation would often land him into trouble, and that was something I could relate to in a way (not getting words right would keep me up at night and nearly choke me when writing for my college internship).

Charles Homar is deliciously fictitious. I had to remind myself, as I often do while reading, not to take it so seriously or try to imagine the novel’s characters and plot line in reality, but as soon as I began to delve deeper into Charles’ fantastical pilgrimage it got easier to stop and just start imagining alongside each character. After a while a few of the encounters felt frivolous but they deliver the outcome so there’s no disputing the merry necessity of each one. This book is not for nonbelievers, but while modern day myths are celebrated the real “monsters” at stake here are the ones within. Whether you hate or love Gillian for sending Charles on this wayward path to sanity, you’ll probably find that his heart was in the right place. His mind on the other hand… will leave you guessing.(less)

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Jun 19, 2012 Mac rated it 3 of 5 stars

The narration of “Busy Monsters” is an achievement worth bragging about. Not only is the voice of Charles Homar immensely entertaining – enjoying himself somewhere with Ignatius Reilly and Raoul Duke and H. I. McDunnough – but it’s sustained incredibly well. Giraldi has essentially sprinted through a marathon course, and for that he deserves a great deal of credit.

But the success of the book is pretty much skin-deep. It’s funny – laugh-out-loud funny, another achievement – but not terribly much...more

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Feb 27, 2012 H R Koelling rated it 3 of 5 stars

There were some very funny moments in this novel, but I almost didn't finish the book. The voice of the narrator was annoying. At several points in the novel various characters comment on the strange speech he uses. They mostly say that no one talks like that. No one does and no one should, even if you're trying to surround a character with a certain ambiance. This diminished the enjoyment I wanted to receive from reading this novel. If the main character, and most of the other characters, used...more

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Feb 08, 2012 M rated it 4 of 5 stars

Charles Homar has found his bride; the giant-squid obsessed Gillian Lee, however, has left Charles in an attempt to track down and capture a live specimen. This is the premise which kicks off William Giraldi's tale, wherein the linguistical lunacy and oddball situations continue to snowball out of control. In an effort to win back his lady, Charles gets sent to minimum-security prison, treks out West to track down Bigfoot, meets an old flame with a new UFO devotion, witnesses a husband box a les...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Jenny Shank rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainme...

Busy Monsters
William Giraldi
(Norton, $23.95)

In William Giraldi's madcap debut novel, narrator Charles Homar, “memoirist of mediocre fame,” is a man in love. His ardor for his fiancée is so powerful that he will stop at nothing to preserve it — he's ready to murder, serve prison time, and even attempt a Sasquatch capture to win back his lady's love.

Charlie is a columnist for the New Nation Weekly (“circulation a hearty six hundred thousand”), who uses his l...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Kat rated it 3 of 5 stars

“For example, I myself do not care for the nitwit twangy platitudes and silly hats of country-western– and this despite the Garth Brooks always on rotation in Groot’s vehicle– but I’d suffer welts and lesions without certain R&B singers and, say, David Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust. Who does not require Bruce Springsteen– they don’t call him the Boss for nothing– snarling about a road called Thunder and how to get where it goes? Or Dylan gargling, bring’ it all back home? Neil Young and his thr...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Jenn rated it 5 of 5 stars

This may be the most incoherent review written about Busy Monsters simply because I haven't read a book I've enjoyed so much in a long time. Also, I don't want to give anything away.

To start, there is one of the best opening sentences ever penned. But unlike most Hollywood movie trailers, we don't get the best stuff all up front. Giraldi's Charles Homar is full of them. And probably "full of it," but at this end of the book I don't know if that matters to me (more on that later). I had FUN readi...more This may be the most incoherent review written about Busy Monsters simply because I haven't read a book I've enjoyed so much in a long time. Also, I don't want to give anything away.

To start, there is one of the best opening sentences ever penned. But unlike most Hollywood movie trailers, we don't get the best stuff all up front. Giraldi's Charles Homar is full of them. And probably "full of it," but at this end of the book I don't know if that matters to me (more on that later). I had FUN reading this book. I enjoyed spending time with Charles.

I'm a poet, and form means a great deal to me. Busy Monsters is perfect in its structure and I cannot imagine it being told in any other way. Myths usually are told from first person POV, and often are chronicles, but nothing like this. Giraldi invites (maybe compels is the better word) you to participate in this story. Trust me, it is a blast to be among the "six hundred thousand" of Homar's readers. What makes it so enjoyable, I think, is the self-awareness Giraldi inserts throughout the story. He doesn't allow the narrative to deconstruct itself, but rather opens it up so you can see it inner workings. His characters ask the questions you have as a reader, and Homar's answers make you want to keep going. Perhaps it is the self-awareness combined with the obvious poke at the question that hovers above every memoir written today--what is truth and what is fiction--that gives the story so much depth. I think for me the more important question it raises it this: who are our myth makers in the 21st century? Who are our heroes? I want to create a lit course called "The Modern Myth" and use Busy Monsters as the central text.

As an avid reader, a writer, and a teacher of writing (often memoir) Busy Monsters spoke to me in ways I'm not sure it will to everyone. There are "inside" jokes and allusions some may miss because it is, of course, a page-turner. If you don't "get" Homar's style, well, you'll miss the whole point. But I believe Giraldi offers something for everyone here--love, monsters, and the crazy adventures the quest of either (or both) will take you on. (less)

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May 22, 2011 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

Busy Monsters, William Giraldi's first novel, has just about everything a reader wants: highwire prose, a loopy, picaresque of a plot, larger than life characters, and a kind of sweetness that you find only when the writer is as enamored of the characters as he hopes the reader might. Not to mention the novel weighs in well on some salient issues of the day: American excesses, the uproar over fake memoirs, among them.

And name me a literary novel that features giant squid, UFO hunters and Bigfoot...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Chelsea Rectanus rated it 2 of 5 stars

Well, I'm gonna try to do a good job on this review, so I'll start off slowly: (1) The author is obviously extremely gifted with the written word. Stylistically, he's no slouch. In fact, he's a riot. I'm jealous, frankly. (2) The plot is fun, engaging, bright with just the right percentage of the absurd. It feels like an intellectual's version of a Dane Cook stand-up routine...

Oh, yeah? You caught that jab? Okay, so you may be getting the picture. Regardless of how intellectual the content, the...more Well, I'm gonna try to do a good job on this review, so I'll start off slowly: (1) The author is obviously extremely gifted with the written word. Stylistically, he's no slouch. In fact, he's a riot. I'm jealous, frankly. (2) The plot is fun, engaging, bright with just the right percentage of the absurd. It feels like an intellectual's version of a Dane Cook stand-up routine...

Oh, yeah? You caught that jab? Okay, so you may be getting the picture. Regardless of how intellectual the content, the sentiment is wrought with paralyzingly male insecurity, chauvinism (what's the difference, eh?), and a maddening lack of real earnestness. No matter how hilarious the comedian, if you can't recognize or sense his or her pain underneath it all--you know that human feeling called Life--the hilarity is tempered by the taste of metal, specifically tin. So. While I understand that the dust-yer-shoulder-off irony of the prose is intentional and even brilliantly so, it still ends hollow. We've all suffered a broken heart and all the subsequent hopes of retrieval and redemption, post mess, but I still couldn't connect to this tongue-in-cheek master of the wronged. A quote that helped clinch my verdict: "A man is not better than biology." Ok, sure. I'm with you. Females, males, sex, nature, I get it. BUT when that is one of the most heartfelt and true lines of a book, that's a problem. I believe that a man CAN be better than biology. Isn't that what literature is about? Transcendence? Betterment?

Basically, the upshot is that this book was exactly what I needed after a long streak of reading almost exclusively Hemingway, Steinbeck, DeLillo, Crevel, you know--the guys who make you want to kill yourself because you're thinking so hard about the Big Stuff. It was like smoking a joint and watching Comedy Central and the Discovery Channel on loop for three days. Awesome to a point and then mind numbing and then annoying. Then awesome again, in afterthought.

Give it a go. Why the hell not?(less)

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Oct 07, 2011 aPriL MEOWS often with scratching rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: why-does-everyone-love-this-ick-ick, finished-reading-but-i-hated-it, literary, metafiction

Literary horse manure. However, if the book is a satire of the literary novel instead of a comedic literary novel then I would rate it three stars instead of one star. And yes, I'm aware of the irony. Actually, this book makes more sense as a satire of the literary genre rather than as an amusing literary fiction, but who knows? For the last 20 years or so most published literary fiction is the same book over and over. It's as if all the writers of such books went to the same MFA class, taught b...more Literary horse manure. However, if the book is a satire of the literary novel instead of a comedic literary novel then I would rate it three stars instead of one star. And yes, I'm aware of the irony. Actually, this book makes more sense as a satire of the literary genre rather than as an amusing literary fiction, but who knows? For the last 20 years or so most published literary fiction is the same book over and over. It's as if all the writers of such books went to the same MFA class, taught by the same Master Teacher, at the same school in the same year. All of these literary "masterpieces" cover the same 20 Great Book Allusions and I'm REALLY looking for the next new proper MFA-approved literary conventions to begin since we HAVE to have such rules apparently for educated Approval. There are some cracks in the monument that the powers that represent the official Literary Canon has built to represent the Ott century of Great Books, but I'm getting very disgusted by the books I pick up because they are highly commended by ALL the booksellers recommending such books as Amsterdam, only to discover that for the next five years almost EVERY literary book thereafter is an Amsterdam, thinly disguised, as an example. I end up bored to death and feeling suckered. Thank goodness for all the pop literature which fills the void being created by sterile 'official' current literary genre copycats. Anyway.

The only character who is truly interesting to me in the book is Gillian, but most of the book is about Charles, who seems to me more of a poser of literary temperament than being any Greek hero or storyteller. Charles is not heroic and he's more blockhead than writer. All the characters sound like Charles Homar, unfortunately. He sounds like those over-the-top actor parodies in those 1930 black and white movies they show on TCM cable channel, the ones where the plots revolve around a boarding house full of actors where silly comedic situations abound around a couple falling in love while surrounded with ridiculous people, one of which is an older actor quoting Shakespeare a lot and dressed like a stage actor. Or its a huge house where several family members live, most of whom are comically crazy and go about blowing horns or firing off cannons at the same time every day, while the aunts poison lonely people and a crazed criminal dressed like a vampire lurks around corners looking for buried treasure. However, this book lacks charm and originality, unlike many of those old movies. Unfortunately, this book revolves around that old silly Shakespearean actor who is the lover searching for a way to either get his ex-fiance, Gillian, returned to him or discover a way to ease his aching heart. He is not old, or an actor, but a writer of a 'memoir' column, published in some obscure publication that all the other characters read all the time so they know who he is. His best friend is Groot, a black ops military man who sends poor Homar on a quest around the country meeting up with guides who seek to discover monsters of legend such as Sasquatch. He also meets people who are a bit legendary monster in their human personas; beautiful goddesses, body-builders, con artists faking UFO contacts, haunted house hunters, etc. He cannot help putting everything into his column, including a murder attempt, despite promises to the contrary. Several of his subjects mention that they don't talk the way Homar said they did in his column. The language of the book is awesome, the story is not. This is another "The Iliad and the Odyssey" literary allusion metayawn.

Let's see. Homar - Homer. The Trojan war of desires, Jillian vs. Homar. The quest with monsters - squid, Loch Ness Monster,Sasquatch, UFO visitors, ghosts.

That out of the way, Homar is an American living in modern America, who has elderly parents, a best friend, a job as a writer and makes a lot of mistakes in judgement resulting in small smile comedy, which is this book. He had a little brother who died young from cancer, and at one point in the book, (view spoiler)(less)

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Oct 25, 2011 Nicholas Mariner rated it 1 of 5 stars

I made it exactly twelve pages into this book. I read the plot and really, really wanted to like it. It sounded like an A Lee Martinez story, who I love, and was compared on the back-cover review to Kurt Vonnegut, who I love even more. My question to whoever wrote that review is this: why do you hate Kurt Vonnegut? This book is written in the voice of a first-person narrator who I believe fancies himself quixotic and garbles the English language to do so. There are people who write, Bradbury, Vo...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Jason Hensel rated it 3 of 5 stars

I will admit that a great first line is all that is needed to cause me to continue reading a book. Surely, I’m not the only one that’s been drawn into, for example, Fahrenheit 451 or A Prayer for Owen Meany based solely on their first lines. Busy Monsters by William Giraldi is another book that kicks you in a kidney with its first line: “Stunned by love and some would say stupid from too much sex, I decided I had to drive down South to kill a man.” If you’re not grabbed by the lapels after that...more I will admit that a great first line is all that is needed to cause me to continue reading a book. Surely, I’m not the only one that’s been drawn into, for example, Fahrenheit 451 or A Prayer for Owen Meany based solely on their first lines. Busy Monsters by William Giraldi is another book that kicks you in a kidney with its first line: “Stunned by love and some would say stupid from too much sex, I decided I had to drive down South to kill a man.” If you’re not grabbed by the lapels after that first line, then you’re suffering from a deep state of depression that Hallmark wouldn’t even be able to help.

Busy Monsters is the story of Charles Homar and his quest to win back a woman who left him. Homar is writer for a periodical that publishes his over-the-top, true-life stories. Yes, Giraldi makes Homar similar in name to Homer, another writer who wrote over-the-top stories full of monsters. And if you didn’t catch that in-your-face similarity, then let me drive you back to school for your first day of high school freshman English.

Homar’s fiancee leaves because she wants to discover a living giant squid. In his quest to win back his lover, Homar tries to prove himself a man by shooting down a ship, capturing Bigfoot, and confronting UFO enthusiasts. Homar, of course, has his own odyssey on his way to reunite with his Penelope.

Giraldi’s narrative reminds me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins. I’m okay with that; however, it took me a couple of pages to get into the swing of things if I put the book down for a day. The style’s over-the-topness took me aback for a bit, but once I got into the groove, I was happy to ride this rocket to its destination.

Along the way, Giraldi wrote some great lines that encapsulate the book’s theme.

“We human monsters make choices with the minds of worms; good sense lies east, we veer west; trouble sends an invitation, we RSVP the very same day.” Also, “…all I mean to say is that a human being is an oblivious ape in the grip of nonsense…” Those are two that come to mind and really struck me enough to memorize the page numbers they’re on.

If you’re a fan of Vonnegut or Robbins, then I believe you’ll love Busy Monsters. It’s a fun read, and it will cause you to contemplate what kind of monsters, real or imaginary, you’d battle to win what’s important to you.(less)

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Dec 28, 2011 RandomAnthony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ok, I finished Busy Monsters on Christmas Eve after my wife and kids were asleep, and today, four days later, I'm trying to remember the novel. I recall, without revealing spoilers:

A) Something about a squid. Yes, a girl obsessed with squid.
B) A couple ancillary characters with names like Romp and...I can't remember the other ones.
C) A road trip to the Pacific Northwest, Boulder, and New Jersey.

So I remember more than I thought I would. In fact, upon reflection, I think I could put together a de...more

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Aug 10, 2011 P rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I won this on Goodreads. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. It's the story of a magazine memoirist who has trouble with that fine line between memory and truth (is this the author's commentary on the memoir genre itself?)and his quest to prove his worthiness after his fiancee jilts him in favor of her search for the Kraken of folklore. What I liked: the way Giraldi plays with language (the narrator loves alliteration and roots)and his surprising figures of speech, the picaresque nature of...more

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Aug 13, 2011 Zoe rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Adults looks for an entertaining read

Shelves: first-reads

I received a copy of Busy Monsters for free in the Goodreads, first reads, giveaway section. The book follows Charles, a memoirist for a news paper, and his journeys after his fiancee leaves him to track down the mysterious Giant Squid. The book is well written, and reads as if you are reading Charles' columns in the newspaper. As a reader you get to follow Charles all around the country are various adventures which are somewhat absurd and quirky, but still just believable enough to seem possibl...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Allan MacDonell rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's fair to assume that William Giraldi loves the sound of his own writing, and why not? The comparisons and physical and emotional descriptions are apt, precise and often unexpected. Whimsy nestles cheeky-to-cheeky with profundity, on the loveseat of comic absurdity, giving a reach-around to self-referential meta narrative. Busy Monsters is monstrously busy, joyously so, for about two-thirds of its lurch, but peters and plods toward an end that is more poof than pow. That deflation showing up...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Jeanne rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 21, 2011 Brenda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Although I still can’t figure out the point of the man vs. lesbian boxing match—and can only shake my head at the scene involving a steroid-addicted satyr and two Asian prostitutes, both of whom tout Ivy league degrees, I ultimately decided to grant four stars to William Giraldi’s Busy Monsters if only because I can imagine what the Coen Brothers could do with Giraldi's quest. His narrator, Charles Homar, reminds me of Jason Stackhouse (Sookie’s brother on True Blood). Charles' well-intentioned...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Milli rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This book sounds like it was written by every pretentious hipster I had the displeasure of meeting as an English major. However, it is intentional... many of the characters scold the narrator for speaking in a douchey manner. I loved the idea of the book: My Fiancee Left me for a Sea Monster. The hilarity of the idea just made it all the more ridiculous. There is also ambiguity as to what are his memoirs, what is true life, and if his memoirs are really memoirs. Not as straightforward as you'd t...more

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Mar 10, 2012 Sarah Messick-Milone rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

I hovered between 3 and 4 stars on this one. I decided I had to go with four stars because this book made me laugh out loud so many times and any book that drives me to copy out a quote deserves more than 3 stars. Doug and I read this together in the two weeks we were limited to since it was on the new and popular shelf at the library, which gives you some indication of how good it is. Sometimes a little too raunchy for my taste, and a rather anticlimatic ending marred the book for me, but the q...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Justine rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had really high expectations for this book - I mean, how can you go wrong with a man who goes on a quest to win back his fiance, who ran away to chase a giant squid? - but it took a really, really long time for me to get invested. I almost didn't finish it, and I always finish books even if I don't like them, because I literally didn't care what happened to these characters. I'm glad I stuck with it though, because by the end, I'd grown interested in how it turned out. It's an incredibly smart...more

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Nov 17, 2011 George Ilsley rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, satire

What a glorious mess! Almost decided a number of times to give up on this book, and can't say that I am happy I didn't. A combination of a brilliant use of language and empty in content. A satire must choose what it is about. This post-modern satire, Seinfeldesque, is a book about nothing. Parts were nonetheless engaging, and I enjoyed the faux-archaic speech (pompous and pretentious, ripe for self-mockage). Overall though there were too many boring and baffling segments and the entire Hollywood...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Kate Barrett rated it 2 of 5 stars

I think when an author invests in a voice and style like Giraldi has chosen, it's inevitable that people will love it or hate it. So many reviewers loved this book, and I wanted to enjoy it, but I struggled the entire time. It felt forced to me, and I hated the way all of the characters sounded like Charlie. (Each chapter, another one of Charlie's stories.) I think about another book that I love that has a polarizing voice and main character - A Confederacy of Dunces. In the case of Busy Monster...more

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Jan 05, 2013 s.m. rated it 3 of 5 stars

As the reviews indicate, you will either love or loath the voice. I loved it. The narrator's voice is interesting and laugh-out-loud funny. I continued reading the book for the voice.

The plot is an adventure story- our narrator is left by his fiance just prior to their wedding day, and he strikes out on a journey to prove his manliness to win her back. In this, we get a fictional meditation on the anxieties and absurdities of contemporary American models of masculinity. We also get, in the meta...more

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May 11, 2013 Alan Newman rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an immensely entertaining novel which is a hilarious send up of the "quest" novel and the Bildungsroman; an homage to Don Quixote and Dickens; a satire of the postmodern novels of Pynchon and Robbins and the spate of memoirs and blogs of the .com era. At the same time it attempts to deal with defining manhood while affirming the existence of true love. There is NO pretense toward naturalism in dialogue or characterization and the humor
Resides in Giraldi's use of language and never lapse...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Jeremy Hauck rated it 1 of 5 stars

from wikipedia: "Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism, is a term coined in 2000 by the English critic James Wood in an essay on Zadie Smith's White Teeth to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization and careful, detailed investigations of real specific social phenomena."

That accurately characterizes this novel about a popular magazine columnist's American "odyssey" in which said colum...more from wikipedia: "Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism, is a term coined in 2000 by the English critic James Wood in an essay on Zadie Smith's White Teeth to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization and careful, detailed investigations of real specific social phenomena."

That accurately characterizes this novel about a popular magazine columnist's American "odyssey" in which said columnists purports to discover Modern Male Manhood, Masculinely.

A sample of the prose:

"Gillian Lee had never gone Joe Frazier on another person before, but once she began left-jabbing and right-hooking, she found it quite natural indeed: Jacobi's potbelly and overall firehydrant physique prevented him from even raising his hands in time to fend off her waylay."

That is a passage about an adult woman physically assaulting a man who has brought her along on a free, all-expenses paid world cruise of her dreams, but who then expresseds Interest in her.

To be clear, this is page 242, in which the protagonist, Charlie Homar (get it? Regular Guy), is reading his ex-fiance's letters, which basically absolve her of betraying him. It's a move I anticipated like a hundred pages earlier, that the woman who left him to be on a giant squid expedition with Jacobi would turn out not to have fucked Jacobi. But I didn't care if she fucked the fire hydrant or not because she was written out of the plot in the first 20 pages. I certainly didn't need pages upon pages of writing like that above to tell me this.

The novel's pattern is: Charlie is sent by his friend to spend time with Very Weird Strangers, then he stays true to Gillian despite her leaving him and him being gratuitously offered four women to have intercourse with (the level of romantic sophistication is lower than the Real World), then he leaves because, you know, Morals or whatever (though Charlie narrates his own story his reasons for doing literally every action feel false), and then he finds more Very Weird Strangers. Repeat. The fact that every chapter ends with him kind of going, OK, I have no reason not to get involved in this but I'm leaving anyway, makes for a boring progression and a world of zero consequences for the protagonist.

The voice is funny in about two places. Otherwise it's another entry into the new subgenre of Modern Literary Fiction known as the Feeling-Bad Caper.

(less)

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Jul 26, 2012 Bandit rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was a hilarious romp of the unlikely, nutty and misguided adventures of one man trying to win back the woman he loves. It's well written, very funny and has some really wacky memorable characters. The author does some very interesting things with words and their arrangements. Very solid debut. The only reason I'm not giving it a higher rating, is that for some reason, despite all its excellent qualities, the book felt a bit too cumbersome and meta at times and thus failed to engage me...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like magical realism, humor, satire

I should have LOVED this book, it is beautifully written, but perhaps I just wasn't in the mood. The story is fantastical and "real" at the same time. A young guy, Charlie, who "perhaps" enhances his appeal to women is dumped by the love of his life. She, Gillian, is off to search for the love of HER life, a giant sea squid. Heart broken, Charlie sets out on a series of adventures in order to win her back... or is to forget her!? Most of the adventures are hilarious, but I think the last one, wh...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Leah Lucci rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I first cracked the book and read the bizarro writing style, my socks were charmed all the way off. I was barefoot and loving it. After a while, though, the charm wears down.

The book's conceit is that every chapter is a memoir short story (kind of like David Sedaris), in chronological installments that combine to create a novel. Each chapter takes place after the release of the last chapter, so people are reading and responding to each previous installment when they encounter him. (The sto...more

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About William Giraldi

William Giraldi's work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Georgia Review, The Believer, the Kenyon Review, and Poets & Writers. A senior editor at AGNI, he teaches in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University.

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Quotes from Busy Monsters

“Be sweet to one another. Stay in this beauty and brawl against the world's power of pulling apart. Recall Old Testament terminology: covenant, sacred, sacrifice. And mind always that Adam wasn’t a schlep fruitily duped by Eve. He turned his back on God because he knew that a paradise without her was no paradise at all.” — 4 people liked it

“Please quiet your strange self lest harm come to you.” — 4 people liked it

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Busy Monsters

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