The MonsTers We Deserve

released OUT NOW! 270 pages | Hardback/ebook

Author Marcus sedgwick Publisher Zephyr Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most influential novels ever written, and the story of its conception – thought up by the 18-year-old author as part of a competition with her lover Percy Shelley and their pal Lord Byron – has become the stuff of legend.

MS, the narrator of The Monsters We Deserve (who may or may not be a fictional avatar of Marcus Sedgwick himself ), loathes it. Holed up in a remote house, trying to write his next book, he becomes fixated on Frankenstein and everything he dislikes about it – its apparent racism and classism, and the clumsy conveniences of its plotting. Then, as the discovery of a secret room begins to fray at his nerves, he receives a visitor: the spectre of Shelley herself.

Sedgwick’s novel is both beautifully written and not a little infuriating. For its first half, it feels like being ranted at by someone with an irrational beef against a long-dead forerunner. As Shelley (and other visitors...) appear to torment MS, the book takes on a more delirious tone, with reality slipping out of joint. Is MS mad, haunted, or trapped in purgatory?

With its focus on authorial paranoia, the book is both deeply personal and not-a-little navel-gazing, but Sedgwick sustains the sense of dread well.