Real Monsters
by Liam Brown
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 1 Mar 2015 | Archive Date 15 Jun 2015
Description
Reeling from the terrorist attack that killed her father, Lorna lurches through an inebriated adolescence until she finds redemption in a young soldier called Danny. However, her dream of a stable life is shattered when Danny is called to serve in war overseas.
Danny is lost in the desert. Most of his unit is dead – victims, it would seem, of a brutal ambush. With their equipment destroyed and food running out, the small band of men stumble through the sand and shadows, desperate to find salvation. As their hope fades, they begin to turn on each other, until finally it becomes clear that only the truly monstrous will survive.
Brown creates a compelling and gripping experience alternating between the soldier and home narrative. Cleverly employing letters and unique voices we are drawn completely into the raw desert while being left with a thought-provoking and graphic view of modern warfare.
'From the scorched desert to the marital bedroom, Real Monsters is a memorable and moving portrait of the futility of 21st century conflict.' Benjamin Myers, author of Pig Iron and Beastings
'Beautifully written, smart and punchy' Sam Mills, author of The Quiddity of Will Self
Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 9781910394571 |
| PRICE | £4.99 (GBP) |
Average rating from 12 members
Featured Reviews
Wendy S, Reviewer
With brutal truths and raw emotion, Real Monsters confronts the fallout of conflict on real people and the legacy this leaves behind.
The book is entirely narrated by Danny and Lorna via their letters, who alternately tell their sides of the conflict since the ‘monsters’ first attacked. Each of them set out to write their individual experiences to their son, right until the end of this compelling read.
Danny is a solider. He enlisted in the army to fight the monsters everyone has heard of. His new wife, Lorna, is left behind to carry on a life, which seems destined to be without him.
The two journals are quite different. Danny’s is an edgy monologue, a unique voice filled with expletives. It is an outpour of the harsh reality of the environment he’s engulfed by and the deteriorating mental state of a small band of soldiers reaching breaking point.
Lorna fills the background about life on home territory. Her journal records the life changing event at the age of twelve when her father had died in a terrorist attack. She tells of her troubled teenage years, until Danny rescued her. She relays her feelings from when Danny enlisted and her subsequent involvement in the protests against the war.
Although you can draw your own conclusions, at no time does the writer give an indication as to the location of Danny and Lorna. This story is portrayed in such a way that it could be set in any time zone, in any place, involving anyone.
It’s the emotion of the storyline that’s important, rather than a factual overload. To give you some idea of how the writer achieved this, he introduces the two narrators, but doesn’t reveal their names until later in story. Although they remained anonymous until then, this only succeeded in my wanting to read further to discover their identity.
Some scenes are fairly harrowing and did make me shudder, plus the style of the narration does take a little getting used to, so it might not be a book for everyone. But I quickly became engrossed, right up to the final and tragic words that Danny and Lorna share.
