Monster in the Middle: A Novel

Product Description
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF FALL 2021 BY: NEW YORK TIMES ● VULTURE ● BOSTON GLOBE ● OPRAH DAILYSHEREADS ● KIRKUS REVIEWS ● HEY ALMA ● LITHUB ● AND MORE“Reveals on every page how love can persevere and take shape over time and space.”—Boston Globe “One of the most inventive and talented stylists of her generation.” —VultureFrom the award-winning author of Land of Love and Drowning, an electric new novel that maps the emotional inheritance of one couple newly in love.\nWhen Fly and Stela meet in 21st Century New York City, it seems like fate. He's a Black American musician from a mixed-religious background who knows all about heartbreak. She’s a Catholic science teacher from the Caribbean, looking for lasting love. But are they meant to be? The answer goes back decades—all the way to their parents' earliest loves.\nVibrant and emotionally riveting,
Monster in the Middle moves across decades, from the U.S. to the Virgin Islands to Ghana and back again, to show how one couple's romance is intrinsically influenced by the family lore and love stories that preceded their own pairing. What challenges and traumas must this new couple inherit, what hopes and ambitions will keep them moving forward? Exploring desire and identity, religion and class, passion and obligation, the novel posits that in order to answer the question “who are we meant to be with?” we must first understand who we are and how we came to be.
Review
Praise for Monster In The Middle:“Back and forth, through time and space, we examine the human propensity to love, to fail at loving, to love again…. On this tumultuous mapping of American magic, we find ourselves at the center. [
Monster in the Middle] boldly tells us: You are here.”
—The New York Times Book Review“A genre-defying multigenerational love story that moves fluidly across time and geography. . . Yanique narratively excavates how our family origins influence our aptitude for intimacy.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Yanique is a writer’s writer, one of the most inventive and talented stylists of her generation… [She] explores the way love can echo along the corridors of history, through police brutality and a pandemic, deftly weaving and juxtaposing the trajectories that make love possible.”
—Vulture “The story of one couple is magnified and layered through the histories of the generations of lovers that preceded them. Spanning decades and geographies, this novel reveals on every page how love can persevere and take shape over time and space.
”—Boston Globe “Themes of race, religion, class, and education appear throughout this ambitious novel, but its abiding focus is on the intimate, and the way broader social forces can impinge upon it… Reality assumes a surreal tinge, and the fluidity of narration, across time, space, and character, imparts an epic register to the intimate encounter between Stela and Fly."
—Harper's Magazine“
Monster in the Middle manages something extraordinary—it’s a truly unique story about love, specifically Black love. In Yanique’s telling, it’s not 'boy meets girl,' but 'two people meet, and thousands of years of family trees, values, and experiences converge.' . . .transporting and deeply emotional.”
—Glamour
“Each of Fly and Stela’s stories could stand on their own, but when the two finally meet, it’s simply perfection. The novel brings us through 2020 — and the ending left me truly speechless. So can you all read it so we can discuss? (Seriously, read this.)”
—Hey Alma “At a recent book event Tiphanie said this book is kind of an embodiment of the phrase, ‘when you marry someone, you marry their whole family.’ At its core, this book is about belonging, and the tension between being held and being kept. Delectable.”
—Magic"Unique and memorable . . .A rich and honest examination of family histories, cultural disconnection, and the way people fall in love."
—Kirkus\n“Soft and intricate with no detail wasted. Readers are lured into the the