Ordinary Monsters

I'm very much shocked that there aren't more reviews or even ratings for this book. In fact, there's not many reviews or ratings for ANY of Karen Novak's novels and I can't imagine why because they're utterly fantastic and well written and engaging on every level. Five Mile House and Innocence are fantastic stories featuring the same character but are two very different tales. Both are great. Ordinary Monsters is no exception. I admit I'm not an expert but I'm familiar with 'The Tempest'. In essence that's what this book is, The Tempest but a contemporary version of it. The book begins telling the story of Joyce, a mother looking for her son who ran away from home. Her search could also be called a flight. A flight from her past mistakes, her broken marriage. A twist of fate leads her to a sparsely populated desert town in California where she has hopes of finding her son but who she meets immediately upon entering the town are a very odd community of people, people who she has more in common with than she knows. The town is populated with people who have ended up there as a result of their own personal flights, it's where they ended up because they had exhausted their options. While in town Joyce meets and becomes attached to Danny, a strange teenager who happened upon the town at one time and was taken in by the community, but he happens to only speak in likes from Shakespear's 'The Tempest'. She starts to treat him as a surrogate son, a replacement for the one she's lost and is searching for. During the course of the book, more is revealed about Joyce's past as are the histories of several of the other strongly supporting characters in the book. Each one is sad in their own way but each one is completely and utterly engaging. The book is rather short at around 270 pages, but it's so rich and well written that it doesn't feel rushed. It feels FULL. Full of the characters that Novak artfully crafts over the course of each page. I recently purchased her last Leslie Stone novel, The Wilderness and I look forward to getting into that one because I find Karen Novak to be a supremely talented story teller. I noticed that it was published about five years ago and have no idea if she's still writing or not, but I honestly hope she does. If the Wilderness is half as good as her previous books (ORdinary Monsters included) then I hope to enjoy it as much as those. Ordinary Monsters should definetly be read by more people, it's too good to miss.

After reading Karen Novak's first novel, Five Mile House, I was extremely excited to start her second. I was not disappointed. Ordinary Monsters captured me instantly and weaved a tale of loss and finding yourself in the most unlikely of places. The story is about a woman searching across the country for her junkie son who ran away with his equally junkie girlfriend. Her search finds her in Lagrimas, a small out of the way and quiet California town. In Lagrimas, the locals like their anonymity, and some would prefer that Joyce never had settled in and bought their local bar. The story revolves around a few central characters that you'll grow to love and wish the novel could go on for hundreds of more pages. I loved this book, I only wish she could write faster and give us more amazing novels.

Novak will seduce you with her masterful and engaging retelling of Shakespeare's tale. Her characters, sharply drawn and all too human, will endear themselves to you right off the bat. Like me, you will find yourself only too willing to follow them down every dark and narrow passage they travel. I indulged myself with Ordinary Monsters -- I started reading on a Saturday afternoon and didn't put down the book until I was done. You'll want to do the same.

The characters in Karen Novak's latest novel are not soft and cuddly. This is not a book for readers who want their endings tied up in neat little packages nor their characters prototypical. But, if a reader is willing to spend some time with characters who come across as real, flawed, self-aware and struggling, then I can't recommend this book highly enough. Joyce is on a mission to find her drug-addicted son. She is also trying to control the uncontrollable--the "ordinary monsters" that stalk us in daily life. Her quest brings her to the middle of nowhere--a bar in the desert. The bar serves as the sink trap for those struggling to avoid being sucked down the drain, a collection of characters with their own secrets and monsters. Novak skillfully shows us how each of these characters wound up in Lagrimas. This is not a novel about pathetic victims, nor is it a novel about Oprah-type heroines who overcome their pasts. Rather, it is about the spider web of relationships that support us--but may also trap us--when we've flown blindly into the night.