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Duncan and Lily, young and adrift in a prickly marriage and lackluster careers, flee Manhattan for the peaceful allure of a recently inherited crumbling Victorian home. But the two are left with little time to ponder the traditional "he said, she said" failings of a relationship: On an upstate road miles shy of their house, a wild boar leaps to his death in front of their Saab–an accident whose consequences will haunt them throughout the summer.
That was no ordinary hog.
Lily and Duncan arrive in the eccentric town of Osterhagen to discover the boar had a name: The Sovereign of the Deep Wood. That it was the town mascot. And, as the hapless urbanites are coerced into the vortex of tea socials, cannon fire, and communal history, they realize that the residents of the bizarre hamlet intend to seek justice for their fallen hero.
Next come the bones.
Duncan, an adman whose controversial new campaign could make or break his career, wants a temporary escape from the pressures of urban life. But his pastoral retreat darkens when an attempt at gardening turns up a human femur in the lawn, a headstone inscribed simply Tinker, 1902, and a sense that Lily’s family may have violence in its aristocratic blood.
And then there’s Lloyd.
Lily, conflicted about her marriage and her career, spends her days at the local library researching her impossibly arcane dissertation topic but can’t seem to make any progress. One day she observes the town pervert in action and befriends him.
Lloyd, a Peeping Tom, invites her to follow him on a bird’s-eye tour of Osterhagen that may help her home in on her own flaws and failings.
Keep digging.
Thrown together in their complicity over the boar’s death, fueled to exhume Tinker’s bones from the garden, and inspired by Lloyd’s philosophical savoir faire, Duncan and Lily begin to excavate the profound truth about themselves and their marriage. But how deep can the two dig before the summer’s violent beginning catches up with them?
In this unabashedly eccentric debut, a young couple with a troubled marriage make the fateful decision to summer in a decaying upstate New York house, leading to a series of bizarre events. First, their car slams into a wild boar, and Lily, seeing it squealing in pain, smashes its skull with a tire iron. But when the two arrive in town, they realize the boar-Sovereign of the Deep Wood-was the town mascot and the beloved pet of a nasty local named Skinner, who is eager to find the culprits. Then Duncan uncovers a gravestone and a human bone in the house's backyard, and the two barely speaking spouses excavate the skeleton and ponder a decades-old whodunit. Meanwhile, ad-man Duncan commutes back and forth to the city and struggles with a campaign that could make or break his career, while Ph.D.-thesis avoidant Lily befriends the town pervert. As the intrigues heighten to an absurd degree, the question of whether Duncan and Lily will reforge their bond in the midst of the macabre goings-on catapults the book to a surreally satisfying climax. It's fun, funny and touching-a great summer book. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Of the Spine in General
Later, when Duncan teases apart the moments before the accident, splits the seconds with atomic precision, he’ll take some satisfaction in telling Lily that his instincts were good. First, a gearing-down to slow the vehicle without jamming up the brakes. Second,a swerve toward the ditch but not into the ditch. And while there was no way to avoid the blow— the thing had launched itself from the bush—he’d done his best to clip it with the driver’s side rather than take it head-on.
What they won’t talk about is the way Lily’s arm shunted across his chest in an attempt to grab the wheel. To steer their destiny in the space before impact. He’ll later recall this moment as something stretched and precipitous over which he was suspended, eggbeater legs and arms akimbo. Where life didn’t so much flash before the eyes as shear away to reveal the truth; the reality of the peculiar, three-handed tangle on the steering wheel.
Once the car bucks and rears and comes to a stop, Duncan and Lily look at each other without speaking. This is his cue to take action. Lift his hands and respond to the shape of her face in the darkness, adjust her glasses, assure her they’re alive. Of course they’re alive, how could they be otherwise? Dying now, barely in their thirties, would just be indulgent. And if there’s one thing they’ve been able to avoid this past handful of years together it’s indulgence. Instead Duncan turns away from his wife to look at the intact airbag panels and tells himself that there’s nothing he could have done differently. It was an act of animal terror. This thing that charged from the shrubs—and remains lodged under the bumper—came at the vehicle with a suicide will.
Next to him Lily moves. She cracks the passenger door open and the car fills with dim light and a pinging sound. Duncan blinks, knows he has to open his own door, get out there and see exactly what it is that’s crushed under the hood. In the snapshot of headlight he’d seen something the approximate size and shape of a snowblower. Only, with a shagged hide. And tusks. His thoughts move to Jurassic possibilities, to woolly and prehistoric museum pieces. It could still be alive. If it survived the ice age, isn’t there a chance the thing is still alive? An even better chance that it’s angry?
He engages his tongue to say to Lily, Stay in the car, the way a husband should. But as he unlaces himself from the belt and turns he finds her seat empty. The passenger door wide open. His pulse starts to natter away in his head like a little hand drum. A shape moves in front of the vehicle. Duncan leans against the wheel, his chest tender from the lash of the belt.
Lily is out there in front of the car, her hand held up to shield against the headlights, her nostrils curled in disgust.
Drive enough highway road and you begin to divide the animal kingdom into new phylum, organizing creatures by the amount of carnage ruptured and splayed as you pass over them. Duncan remembers road trips as a child where his father could identify any beast by the strum it made against the transmission. That was a blacktail prairie dog, he’d say as they felt the knuckling against the Ford’s muffler. Born last spring, third in the litter, a tick infestation in the right ear. In the backseat Duncan would rise to his haunches to verify the receding mounds.
It was his father who would later teach him to drive the stretch of I-94 outside St. Paul. Duncan, he’d say, straightening the wheel under the boy’s fingers. On the highway you don’t swerve for nothing—you go through. His father guided that Thunderbird over the entire phylum Chordata with ease, without even a glance at the rearview mirror. He was the sort of man who trusted that the miles of highway ahead would work feather and fleece out from the tread of the tires.
Those were the old days of snarling engines, however, when man was King of the Road and large beasts remained screened behind the trees where they belonged. Who would have believed that the slender leg of a deer could punch a hole through a windshield with the accuracy of a pool cue? That hitting a moose was like plowing into a one-ton stilt-walker?
All of these things, accidents. But the thing that’s come at them tonight came with true criminal intent. Against his father’s time-honored advice Duncan had swerved and tried to take most of the blow on the driver’s side. Later, when Lily is clucking at the Saab, its hood crushed like a boxer’s nose, he’ll insist they were lucky. It was trying to grease all three of us, he’ll say.
The beast is quilled hide stretched over a humped spine. Something best used to scrape soot from chimney flues. Its stout hindquarters are wrapped around the tire while its forelegs stretch out from under the grille. The side of skull that hasn’t collapsed under the bumper evokes the skull of a pig. But a pig transmogrified, reverted to ancestral proportions, a fossil in loose fur. Each side of its long snout is decorated with a curled fang, and the one good eye, shut in sudden death, has lashes thick as a hairbrush. Duncan can hear the patter of either blood or transmission fluid on the road.
Lily crouches near the tire. “It’s a wild boar,” she says without a hint of astonishment in her voice. As though collisions with feral swine are common enough along the Hudson.
Duncan looks up and down the country highway. “That’s impossible.” He watches the nature channel. Knows a bit about which creatures are indigenous to North Africa versus upstate New York.
At his feet his wife is positioned too close to the animal. Should he yank her away by the shoulder? At least place himself between her and the car? What if the thing’s rabid? It’s a possibility; there’s a rim of lather around the snout. Although that might just be the foam of death. But what if it’s not dead? What if it rouses itself, untangles that broken body from the all-season radials in order to charge them one last time? You hear about things like this happening. Lily is definitely too close.
But Duncan doesn’t move. Doesn’t risk putting a hand on her shoulder lest she brush him off.
In this moment, the moment in which he chooses not to act, the creature opens its eye. It’s an eye filled with milky fury and as it scrolls down the length of snout, the pig’s front quarters start to twitch and heave.
“Christ, Lily. Get the fuck back.” He steps out of the high beam himself as the boar lifts a cloven hoof and begins to paw at the road, attempting to free itself from the weight of the vehicle. Lily tips herself back and gets to her feet. She moves quick, comes to stand behind him in the darkness. He can hear her breath like hard flaps.
“Where did it come from?”
And then, the antiphonal response. The animal’s mouth falls open, releasing both a pool of fluid Duncan knows has nothing to do with the transmission and a sound that will certainly make him rethink ham. It’s the screech of speedway racing, he thinks. The ululation of bush women, the yowl of coyotes tearing into a sack of kittens—
He starts to share this idea with his wife, to repeat these three clever metaphors, but he realizes she’s no longer standing behind him.
“Lily?”
The trunk slams and a moment later she reappears in the shaft of headlight holding a tire iron. More specifically, she holds the tire iron out to Duncan.
“Finish him off.”
“What?”
“Cell phone’s dead. We can’t just leave it on the road.”
“I can’t kill it.”
Lily looks between him and the carnage, creating an arc of irony in the air.
Here’s Duncan, then. Thirty-two and cobbled together from what he was handed, improved by bottled water and corporate slow pitch, a weekly exfoliating cleanser he stocks in the bathroom cabinet without shame. A strong thatch of hair still. Blue eyes muffled and comfortable like old shirts that will no longer snap on the line and nothing in those eyes that you’d call dispassionate. For these reasons, or despite these reasons, he cannot bring himself to take the tire iron from his wife. There are eight good seconds—he can count them—in which she stands offering it to him and he stands looking north where the highway unfurls like a wet tongue toward the house waiting for them in Osterhagen. And he knows he’ll always think that Lily has short-changed him; that given two more seconds, simply nudging the total to ten, he might have made another choice. But the buzzer sounds at eight and when he looks back at the tire iron, Lily herself brings it down with a batter’s crack against the base of the animal’s skull.
1. There is a strong animal presence in New World Monkeys—beginning with the title. Can you describe how Duncan and Lily experience animal nature? Is it something to be feared or revered?
2. There are two very distinct settings in the book: the small upstate town of Osterhagen, and Manhattan. Could you argue that the Vietnam of Duncan’s imagination is a third setting?
3. In the very first chapter, Lily kills the Sovereign of the Deep Wood. What does this single incident tell you about both husband and wife and the roles they play? Discuss the difference between a lifealtering moment and a life-revealing moment.
4. Why do you think the author chose a creature like a wild boar to collide with Duncan and Lily’s car?
5. In Osterhagen, Duncan and Lily are surrounded by wilderness—or wildness. How does savageness start seeping into their lives? How does this affect Duncan, in particular, who must return to his city life each Sunday night?
6. When we first encounter the Osterhagen townsfolk, they appear to be a quirky community but they soon develop into a menacing force. How does adversity in the form of Skinner, his poodle and his son Emmett affect a couple like Duncan and Lily?
7. Lloyd is a troubling character. Yes, he’s a pervert but he’s also unsparingly honest. What do you think he represents for Lily through the course of her summer? Why do you think she never tells Duncan about him?
8. After peeping on the dentist, Lloyd says: “You’re the sophist, Lily. You probably think what? That you’re a great liberal?” He shakes his head as if she is pitiful. “But you’ve never done anything wrong. That’s why the little things bother you so much—smirches on your sterling record of close calls.” Beyond his perverse nature, what are the advantages and disadvantages of allowing someone like a ‘filterless’ Lloyd into your confidence?
9. When the police come to question Lily she has the opportunity to turn Lloyd in. Why do you think she doesn’t do it? As a reader, what did you want her to do, and why?
10. Lily becomes somewhat of the ‘keeper’ of Tinker’s bones. What do they represent to her and what do the midnight digs come to represent to them both she and Duncan as a couple?
11. The physical body has several iterations in this book—it is prized, nurtured, murdered, mutilated, buried and dug up in turn. How do these cycles relate to what Duncan and Lily go through during their marriage?
12. What does Duncan want from his career at the ad agency? As he takes on a leadership role among his colleagues, his character begins to change—perhaps surprisingly. In your experience, how accurate a description is this of group-think?
13. Lily justifies her decision to hide Duncan’s One Show trophies as an attempt to protect him against her father’s derision. How reasonable is this logic? Can you think of examples where you had to draw the line between protecting people in your life and ultimately hurting them?
14. What do you think of Duncan’s decision to follow Lily up to Osterhagen for the summer? When we first meet the couple, how deeply are they aware of their marital trouble? How committed are they to one another? What do you think is the sparking incident that forces them to turn a corner in their relationship?
15. How do the interactions between Duncan and Lily change as the story progresses? Does the backdrop of a rural, upstate town help or hinder their relationship? Is Duncan a different man when he’s with his wife than he is when he’s with his team at the agency?
16. New World Monkeys is written from a dual perspective. How do you feel about this if you are a male reader? A female reader? Who do you think is the emotional center of the story? Or can there be two emotional cores?
17. After being with both Duncan or Lily for the duration of the story, do you find that your loyalty shifts between characters? Would you say that rooting for one or the other is really indicative of your own experiences and life situation?
18. Consider this passage of Duncan’s point of view on his wife: “While he remained terrestrial and not quite upright she had entered the order of new world monkeys, was afforded a superior position among the trees.” What are other examples of Duncan misreading Lily? What role does Lily’s envy of her husband’s creativity play in the dissolution of their marriage?
19. Duncan and Lily appear to ‘devolve’ as individuals, versus progressing toward enlightenment. What affect does the author achieve by using this ‘reverse’ method to develop the characters? In this context, consider the title, New World Monkeys which Duncan uses to denote a better, progressive and elevated state.
20. How is the idea of ‘returning to the wild’ echoed in the book? Give examples of how both Duncan and Lily ‘re-wild’ both the mind and body over the course of their bizarre summer.
tamcalinyc
Posted September 14, 2009
I got my hands on a copy of this novel and I couldn't put it down. Nancy Mauro's writing style is truly unique and sets her apart from the masses of sound-alikes that abound.
This book will take you on an unexpected journey. The power dynamics she explores will give you pause and make you think of your own life and relationships. I never imagined I would come to care about a peeping Tom and an ill-fated wild boar (that's where the tire iron comes in).
One of her protaganists works in the Advertising Industry. I couldn't help but squirm at some of her spot-on observations. But don't be misled - this is about MUICH MUCH more than a look inside the twisted reality of the NY advertising scene. That provides only one of the delicately intertwining sub-plots.
I highly recommend this book for everyone from the big city industry guy to the small town idealist. You will all be proven wrong.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Estranged couple Lily and Duncan leaves the heat of Manhattan to spend part of the summer in the Upstate New York town of Osterhaven although he knows it will be a long commute as h is an ad exec in the Big Apple. Their drive is uneventful until near the house they leased, the couple hits an apparent wild boar running out of nowhere onto the road Lily feeling for the beast still alive but crying in severe pain takes the tire iron and smashes the animal's head until he is dead.
In Osterhaven, they learn the boar they killed is considered sacred by townsfolk as the Sovereign of the Deep Wood. In particular he was Skinner's pet and the angry odious man vows similar deaths to the killers; as does other fuming residents. The house they rented is dilapidated and while exploring outside Duncan finds a gravestone and a human bone. Stunned they disinter the remains of the buried body. While Duncan is in New York City, Lily becomes friends with the town pervert who she finds she can communicate with easier than her spouse.
This is an entertaining graveyard humor thriller tale that paints a neat twist to the urban yuppie finding heaven in rustication as both the big city and small town are made up of two legged beasts. The key to this engaging tale is Nancy Mauro never takes the subject too gravely serious as the author uses hyperbolic ghoulishness to make a case that veracity is the foundation of any relationship.
Harriet Klausner
plembeniwich6
Posted May 17, 2010
This book is extremely well written, in a unique and interesting style that makes it fun to read just for the sake of the metaphors. The story itself is very clever as well, and while amusing and lighthearted at times, it also tells the story of a broken marriage in a way that pulls at your heart. I haven't picked up many books that caught my attention like this one. This book is a good quick read, is good for starting conversation. Its very intellectually stimulating and enjoyable to read. I would definitely reccomend this book to anyone who wants a refreshing and original read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Booksnyc
Posted February 20, 2010
New World Monkeys: A Novel by Nancy Mauro tells the story of a young couple (Duncan and Lily), married for 5 years, who head to upstate NY one summer in an effort (although this is never stated directly) to salvage their troubled marriage. A series of bizarre events unfold including the killing of a wild boar, Lily's friendship with a Peeping Tom and the couple's archeological dig of their backyard to unearth the body of the nanny that abducted Lily's great-grandfather. Hmm . . . sounds like a lot is going on but the main plot, that of the couple and the slow unraveling of their marriage, moves slowly with little to no progress. That seems intentional - there is no action in that plot because the couple is really examining the state of their marriage, themselves and how they relate to each other against the backdrop of the crazy townspeople lusting for revenge for the killing of the wild boar, the bones in the backyard and the revelations from the Peeping Tom.
I really like the author's style of writing - it is smart and witty with sentences that are crafted, not just written. In fact, Carolyn See in her review of the book for the Washington Post , said the book belonged to a sub-genre that is rare these days, "Educated-Women's Lit" - I think that is a great way to describe a genre for this book. Although I appreciated the smart writing style and dry humor in the book, I did get frustrated with the characters, especially Lily. She seemed supercilious and invulnerable and once she befriended Llyod, the Peeping Tom, and began partaking in his perverted afternoon adventures, she lost me. I found I cared more about her husband, Duncan, and his struggles in the ad business including his insecurities about not being smart or successful enough. But I never found myself caring much about either of them as much as I cared about their examination of their marriage - this novel isn't really about the characters but about the marriage and its fate. The narrative is so smart that is almost makes up for the fact that the characters are not really the main stars of the novel.
cr3558
Posted December 17, 2009
This might possibly be the oddest book I have ever read. I can usually knock out a book this size in 3 or 4 days but this one took two weeks. I guess in a way it is a compelling read because I kept going back to it but honestly, I never found the answers I needed to make this a really great read. I will say that the characters are interesting but boy are they cowardly. The ending was beyond strange and it felt like the writer just stopped writing.
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Posted December 7, 2009
How I felt glad for the wild boar - it was put out of its misery right at the start. I, on the other hand, had to wait longer.
By page 44, I was fairly certain that I would not enjoy this book, but, lacking anything else to read, carried on, regardless. Halfway through, I finally gave up. It was trite, tedious and boring, and I was happy to, at last, have another book to read, putting this one down, in the certain knowledge that it would get no better.
Not so much wild boar as an absolute bore.
This book had the makings of something delightful, funny and thought provoking, but somehow missed hitting the mark. The characters were original but their interactions with each other were, at times, beyond absurd. Maybe that was a point the author was trying to make (which did create some funny moments) but I found the overall effect strange and a bit stilted. Very disappointing ending.
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Posted September 27, 2009
A dark and delicious tale. Mauro is an original, certainly one to watch.
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Posted September 18, 2009
Ms. Mauro is a true wordsmith, brilliant storyteller, and astute observer of the contemporary human condition. I'm looking forward to reading the other twisted tales she has locked up in her head!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Loved the characters, plot and especially the ending.
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Posted September 16, 2009
Intriguing plot with credible characters
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Brilliant first novel from Mauro. From the opening accident scene involving wild swine to the darkly comedic plot that ensues, this book will draw you in with its plot twists, lyrical writing and under the surface glance at the world of advertising. A must read from a strong new talent.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Tough_reader
Posted September 15, 2009
Nancy Mauro's debut novel, "New World Monkeys," was a pleasure to read! The characters were quirky and compelling, the plot windy and engrossing, and the writing fresh and fun. The book will make you laugh, think, and put a smile on your face...
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Posted September 15, 2009
Outstanding, layered characters unveil themselves in a truly original storyline. Mauro creates humour where there shouldn't be any and a genuine sense of anticipation as she peels back the layers of this deliciously written mystery.
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Posted September 15, 2009
In short, this a book about 30-something marital angst. Hard to believe this is her first novel, I liked it so much. The author has very deftly drawn characters that are uncomfortable in their own skin, which is something I can totally relate to! And something she's careful not to betray as we feel them grapple with one another in that detached and fumbling way that is so common in relationships gone weird (for reasons not even they can quite put their fingers on - sound familiar?) Being the fly on the wall as they wrestle with their quirks, foibles and especially those uncomfortable silences that pass between them was delicious.
Dave - Toronto, Canada
Anonymous
Posted September 15, 2009
Lily and Duncan SHOULD have it made -- they are attractive young professionals with the luck to inherit a gorgeous old house in an idyllic upstate burg. But pages into this thoroughly entertaining debut, cracks are appearing in this pretty picture. Delicious complications come fast and furious and they all originate in a mysterious old boar that looms larger in death than he did in legendary life. This is a novel that will make you laugh, surprise you, tantalize you and make you think -- in essences, a perfect fall read. Don't miss it!
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Posted September 15, 2009
I wish books like New World Monkeys came out more often. Why can't we have more debut authors with such a stunningly mature voice, who craft characters that are as erudite as they are comic. It's a provocative and entertaining work. Pick it up!
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Posted September 15, 2009
Accurately captures the post Mad Men world of advertising, the contradictions of modern relationships, the absurdity and the sheer fun of it all. Striking characters colliding in situations that are as bizarre as they are real. The pettiness of everyday drama escalates to a feverish existentialist pitch. And above all the book is sweet, fun, beautifully written and a wonderful read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I am currently reading NWMs and I am in love with Nancy Mauro's wit and humor.
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Posted September 15, 2009
Excellent read, could not put it down! Would love to see more works from the author!
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Overview
A savagely smart, darkly comic literary debut, New World Monkeys exposes the false idols of marital tranquillity, small-town idyll, and corporate Darwinism in the dazzling voice of a major new talent.Duncan and Lily, young and adrift in a prickly marriage and lackluster careers, flee Manhattan for the peaceful allure of a recently inherited crumbling Victorian home. But the two are left with little time to ponder the traditional "he said, she said" failings of a relationship: On an upstate road miles shy of their house, a wild boar leaps to his death in front of their Saab–an accident whose consequences will haunt them...