Mister Monkey
A Novel
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
“Tender and artful . . . a gently spiritual celebration of life.” —New York Times Book Review
Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Francine Prose weaves an ingenious, darkly humorous, and brilliantly observant story that follows the exploits and intrigue of a constellation of characters affiliated with an off-off-off-off Broadway children’s musical
Mister Monkey—a screwball children’s musical about a playfully larcenous pet chimpanzee—is the kind of family favorite that survives far past its prime. Margot, who plays the chimp’s lawyer, knows the production is dreadful and bemoans the failure of her acting career. She’s settled into the drudgery of playing a humiliating part—until the day she receives a mysterious letter from an anonymous admirer . . . and later, in the middle of a performance, has a shocking encounter with Adam, the twelve-year-old who plays the title role.
Francine Prose’s effervescent comedy is told from the viewpoints of wildly unreliable, seemingly disparate characters whose lives become deeply connected as the madcap narrative unfolds. There is Adam, whose looming adolescence informs his interpretation of his role; Edward, a young audience member who is candidly unimpressed with the play; Ray, the author of the novel on which the musical is based, who witnesses one of the most awkward first dates in literature; and even the eponymous Mister Monkey, the Monkey God himself.
With her trademark wit and verve, Prose delves into humanity’s most profound mysteries: art, ambition, childhood, aging, and love. Startling and captivating, Mister Monkey is a breathtaking novel from a writer at the height of her craft.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The story of Prose's (Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932) latest novel is the story of Mister Monkey, a regrettable children's musical, itself based on the unlikely success of a (fictional) novel written several decades earlier by a Vietnam vet named Ray and starring a monkey "rescued" from the jungles of Africa to live a domestic life with a human family. That the musical production is terrible is the one thing on which all the characters agree. Margot, the bitter leading lady, who was once a promising young actress and is now questioning her choices; Adam, its problem-child star in a gorilla suit whom all adults want to punish or medicate; Mario, a lifelong waiter in the audience who takes a shine to Margot: everyone knows the story, its premise, and its songs are awful. Each chapter relays the perspective of a different character, including the play's actors and more tangential people. In one section, an aging gentleman takes his grandson to the play, trying to forge a deeper relationship with him in the face of his own ailing health and mounting isolation. In another chapter, that same boy's kindergarten teacher confronts the depths of her loneliness during a very bad date at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, where the waiter happens to be Mario. As absorbing and three-dimensional as each character is, the development of the actual novel feels awkwardly formulaic, and the strangeness of the play itself (for instance, Margot plays the monkey's lawyer in a rainbow wig) is stilted, despite the genuine intrigue of each scene in the novel.
