Bad Monkeys

by Matt Ruff

Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder.

She says she's a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil. She says she's working with the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—aka "Bad Monkeys."

Her confession lands her in the jail's psychiatric wing and earns her countless hours of poking, probing, and questioning by a professional. But is Jane crazy or lying?

Or is she playing a whole different game altogether?

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Speculative Fiction

First published July 24, 2007

About the author

I was born in New York City in 1965. I decided I wanted to be a fiction writer when I was five years old and spent my childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories. At Cornell University I wrote what would become my first published novel, Fool on the Hill, as my senior thesis in Honors English. My professor Alison Lurie helped me find an agent, and within six months of my college graduation Fool on the Hill had been sold to Atlantic Monthly Press. Through a combination of timely foreign rights sales, the generous support of family and friends, occasional grant money, and a slowly accumulating back list, I’ve managed to make novel-writing my primary occupation ever since.

My third novel, Set This House in Order, marked a critical turning point in my career after it won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and helped me secure a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. My fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, also won multiple awards and is being developed as a film, with Margot Robbie attached to star. My sixth novel, Lovecraft Country, has been produced as an HBO series by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. It will debut on Sunday, August 16.

In 1998 I married my best friend, the researcher and rare-book expert Lisa Gold. We live in Seattle, Washington.