The Laughing Monsters, a Spy Novel for the 21st Century

If you’re looking for a quick, edge-of-your-seat, can’t-put-it-down read, pick up National Book Award winner Denis Johnson’s newest novel, The Laughing Monsters. It’s a nail-biting page-turner that ends as unceremoniously as it begins. Weighing in at a neat 228 pages, The Laughing Monsters packs a great punch in a little package, with viscerally real characters, a volatile and mysterious setting, and many of the trappings of a classic spy novel.
Roland Nair seems no more sure of where he’s been than where he’s going. An American-born Dane who speaks almost no Danish, Nair is as comfortable in Rishikesh as he is in Cleveland. This is rather a convenient quality in a spy, though technically Nair is a NATO operative. The only thing more confusing than his origin is his loyalty, which seems to belong to everyone and no one. He’s smart, resourceful, and charming…but not exactly a choirboy. He drinks anything put in front of him, seeks out the services of sex workers despite his loyal significant other back home, and angles to win the affections of his friend’s fiancée. Nope, not a nice guy. But so dang likable!
Nair is in Sierra Leone on the hunt for old friend and comrade Michael Adriko. The two have a long history of helping each other both into and out of assorted espionage-related scrapes. When Nair finds his target, the two resume their old buddy routine as only two spies-for-hire can: with equal parts conviviality and suspicion. Their uneasy bond is further tested by Adriko’s captivating American fiancée, Davidia, whom the two place firmly in the center of the perpetual tug-of-war between their egos. Despite their mistrust for one another, Nair and Adriko know they can get further together than apart. Nair is scheming to sell U.S. intelligence at a hefty profit, and Adriko is after a place at the table of the family from which he was separated as a child during a bloody insurrection. Neither can complete his mission without the other, and so the pair trudge on toward their shared goals of profit, redemption, and a decent hotel.
In Nair, Johnson has painted a stirring portrait of a man torn between his lust for adventure and his angst over the apparent purposelessness of his life. Nair’s mood is as unreliable as Johnson’s Africa itself. Through vivid descriptions of the embattled, poverty-stricken continent, as beautiful as it is unforgiving, Johnson draws on readers’ empathy for the casualties of war and colonialism. You’ll see the majestic mountain range from which the novel gets its name, feel the sultry evening air pocked with deadly insects, and hear the American classics pumped through analog radios, eerily incongruous with their surroundings. Johnson has his finger firmly on the pulse of a post-9/11 world, a place so volatile it seems one spark away from combustion.
The novel is classic spy stuff in that it’s full of intrigue, plot twists, and an underlying electric current of urgency. The Laughing Monsters, however, is modern in its tone and delivery. Though eschewing a neatly tied plot and a clear understanding of who the good guys are, the novel’s compelling characters and exhilarating prose make it a great ride.