The Solace of Monsters

by Laurie Blauner

Overview

"Blauner never shies away from the grotesque, or the beautiful. . . . Courageous and innovative and mesmerizing, Frankenstein for a new age." —Helen Phillips, The Beautiful Bureaucrat

"A statement about the nature of evil and its inevitability, even necessity, that reveals the tragic essence of [Blauner's] vision and her adroitness with metaphor." —Jerome Gold, The Moral Life of Soldiers

"If Solace was like its protagonist—built from others' body parts—it might draw its parts from Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and, naturally, Frankenstein. In the end, Solace is its own weird and wonderful creation, the story of the fifth version of a daughter who, despite being haunted by lives she never led . . . simply wants to be herself." —Mark Brazaitis, The Incurables

Created by a grieving father, Mara F. is haunted by previous Maras. One day she escapes into the world. The Solace of Monsters contrasts the creation of life with its ending. How does an artificial creature discover life? What do her adventures tell us about "natural" life and our own attempts to survive—and find solace—in the world?

Laurie Blauner is the author of three novels and seven books of poetry. She received a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship and Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, 4Culture, and Artist Trust grants and awards. She was a resident at Centrum in Washington State and was in the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2007. Her work has appeared in many literary journals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935248880
Publisher:	Leapfrog Press
Publication date:	10/18/2016
Series:	Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize Winner
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Laurie Blauner is the author of three novels, Infinite Kindness, Somebody, and The Bohemians, all from Black Heron Press, as well as seven books of poetry. A novella called Instructions for Living was published in 2011 from Main Street Rag. Her most recent book of poetry, It Looks Worse than I Am, was published in 2014 as the first Open Reading Period selection from What Books Press. A poetry chapbook was published in 2013 from dancing girl press. She has received a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship as well as Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, 4Culture, and Artist Trust grants and awards. She was a resident at Centrum in Washington State and was in the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2007. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Georgia Review, American Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, Field, Caketrain, Denver Quarterly, The Colorado Review, The Collagist, and many other magazines. She lives in Seattle, Washington. Her web site is www.laurieblauner.com.

Editorial Reviews

"An artful magician’s trick of the highest order, masquerading as kind of horrific fairy tale gone wrong…. Ultimately, we must ask who is the monster? The sorrowful, all too real Mara 5, the man who created her, who is determined to try again with a Mara 6? Or the society we live in? Blauner, who never writes the same kind of novel twice, amazes us again with her dexterity." — Misfit Magazine

"Mara's dogged curiosity and integrity give the novel an appealing energy. She's an engaging heroine…. Blauner often reaches for a quirky expression of detail that sometimes creates a charming image … and sometimes verges on silly … but when her writing is at its clearest and simplest, Mara's wonder at her journey and the people she meets springs off the page and welcomes the reader into her world." — Kirkus

From the Publisher

2016-08-03
In a slim novel divided into four parts, Blauner (It Looks Worse Than I Am, 2014, etc.) explores the themes of Frankenstein in the context of a bizarre father-daughter relationship and a quest for self-understanding.Mara lives a lonely and confusing life with her father, a disgraced scientist who lost a wife and daughter in a car accident. Driven by grief, he creates Mara out of parts collected from corpses, assembling them with endless operations and experiments in an obsessive attempt to re-create the loved ones who haunt his laboratory in photographs. Mara is not yet an accurate facsimile. Parts of her body wear out and need to be replaced. She struggles to control her unusual physical strength and is terrified of hurting other creatures by accident. After a disturbing visit from an outsider, Mara runs away and sets out on a journey that has the feel of a fairy tale, despite its more contemporary setting. She encounters a series of unusual characters, and each interaction serves as a lesson about self. The story lacks subtlety and harps on themes of self-discovery, but Mara’s dogged curiosity and integrity give the novel an appealing energy. She's an engaging heroine, and the fact that the story is told in her voice helps smooth over odd lapses in logic and strangely awkward turns of phrase. Blauner often reaches for a quirky expression of detail that sometimes creates a charming image (“His usual frown ruffled his forehead like a hat”) and sometimes verges on silly (“Greg’s corneas screamed with my awkward reflection”), but when her writing is at its clearest and simplest, Mara’s wonder at her journey and the people she meets springs off the page and welcomes the reader into her world. An uneven novel that depends on its intriguing heroine.

Kirkus Review