Mister Monkey

Don't let the illustrated cover fool you, this is no comic romp but rather a dark existential look at the tenuously connected lives surrounding a low-rent, off-off Broadway musical called Mister Monkey.

It's a clinic in people watching written by a master author. As people exit the theatre and gather outside, someone is concocting stories for the middle-aged actress smiling through gritted teeth, another wandering home still wearing the police uniform she wore during the production, the surly boy and his doting, hippie mother, the long faced man standing alone outside.

There isn't a happy one in the lot either as Prose devotes a chapter to each. They suffer over failed first dates, the persistent fear of the end of the world, thwarted ambition, self-doubt, self-loathing, unrequited love. Wonderfully written and piercingly thoughtful it was, nonetheless, far too dour for my current reading state of mind.