Latest / Bookies' Favourite / There's a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated by Karen Fleetwood & Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, published by Bullaun Press | Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Press 2025

Transcript

There's a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated by Karen Fleetwood & Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, published by Bullaun Press | Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Press 2025 · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:12
  Welcome to the club cookies Favorite book club.
• 0:16
  We're currently reading the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction
• 0:19
  Prize. Long list.
• 0:20
  This bonus episode we're discussing last year's winner,
• 0:24
  There's a Monster Behind the Door by Gael Belem, translated
• 0:29
  from the French by Karen Fleetwood and Leticia St.
• 0:32
  Lubert and published by Bull and Press.
• 0:36
  Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm currently in my little beach shack selling
• 0:41
  all the treats of the day to all the customers walking by.
• 0:45
  I read this book on my Kindle. Getting good use of my Kindle
• 0:49
  these days guys and really like that.
• 0:52
  It was quite a short novel. Found it a bit hard to get into
• 0:56
  at the start and there's sometimes I find it a bit hard,
• 0:59
  like we'd be like talking about a character for like 3 pages and
• 1:02
  the next minute we swap the narrative a bit.
• 1:05
  But overall really enjoyed the story and I can kind of see why
• 1:09
  it won, but what did you guys think?
• 1:11
  Hi, I'm Colin. I'm currently climbing all over
• 1:14
  the dinner table no matter what my parents are going to do to
• 1:17
  me. But yes, I read this from my
• 1:21
  local library. Yes, shout out to the libraries.
• 1:24
  I have too many books now, so I have to get them from the
• 1:26
  library. And I like this book overall.
• 1:29
  I think I think it was sort of better in the first half and I
• 1:34
  think as it went on, I sort of kind of sort of lose my way.
• 1:36
  But the writing I think was fantastic and almost like quite
• 1:40
  funny, but in like a not ha ha way and more of like a sad sort
• 1:44
  of funny way. But yeah, I I can also like like
• 1:48
  and I can see why it won and actually because it was
• 1:51
  shortlist or sorry, long listed for the Booker International
• 1:54
  prize. I and we, we didn't get the
• 1:56
  chance to read it then actually I kind of think it would have
• 1:59
  been up there and for my my winner and if like when we had
• 2:04
  done that list previously. I'm Aaron, our resident video
• 2:08
  journalist, and I am helping a wannabe beauty queen find her
• 2:16
  other stiletto high heel while she has a busted lip and we're
• 2:22
  trotting all over the orchids outside of a wedding in a random
• 2:27
  restaurant. I am still reading this book.
• 2:31
  I'm about 1/3 of the way through, but so far, it's fun.
• 2:35
  It's it's nice to see this other culture and this island be
• 2:42
  brought to life through the literature.
• 2:45
  But yeah, I'm enjoying it so far.
• 2:48
  Is it a shocker that you haven't finished it all, Aaron?
• 2:51
  I mean. Yeah, this is just par for the
• 2:53
  course. A leopard doesn't change its
• 2:56
  spots. To start us off, here's a quote
• 3:01
  from There's a Monster Behind the Door.
• 3:03
  Children are unaware of such things as deceit or suspicion.
• 3:07
  They don't even know that tales exist.
• 3:10
  A Prince is a Prince. A dragon deserves to die.
• 3:14
  Every myth is a fact. All legends are ancient truths.
• 3:18
  Children's faith and love are boundless and lead to their
• 3:22
  downfall. They have only one altar, the
• 3:25
  Truth, and two gods, their parents, upon whose omniscience
• 3:30
  and wisdom they rely. Yet the only thing your parents
• 3:33
  see you as is a little credulous lump of flesh and the chance to
• 3:38
  exercise their own immense powers.
• 3:41
  So this takes place in Laos reunion, if I say quick enough,
• 3:44
  it'll hopefully lend together, but it's a French department or
• 3:47
  department of France as how they department of France, I guess is
• 3:51
  probably the better way to say it.
• 3:53
  And it's it has a rocky sort of colonial history and with quite
• 3:58
  a mix of people living on the island.
• 4:00
  And we follow the des sons again, I hope that's how that's
• 4:05
  pronounced. And mother, father and daughter
• 4:10
  and we see sort of this family line.
• 4:13
  And is there bad blood? Like, is there sort of lineage
• 4:17
  cursed in a way to make them bad people throughout the story?
• 4:22
  And it's from the point of view of the daughter who is like a
• 4:26
  writer and she finds writing as an escape, which I thought was
• 4:29
  really, really interesting, which I'll talk about probably a
• 4:31
  bit later on. But yeah, it's more of like a
• 4:35
  play by play. It's not really plotted.
• 4:37
  It's just sort of an exploration of this family and like their
• 4:41
  their arc, if you know what I mean.
• 4:43
  What did we think of that to be? Do we enjoy that?
• 4:45
  No, I really did enjoy it. And I love a book that has like,
• 4:51
  not maybe like a political, historical slight edge to it.
• 4:55
  And then we got to see the people who live, you know, their
• 4:58
  life through like that island or that kind of culture through,
• 5:01
  you know, that way. You know, I think that what
• 5:05
  always happens to me is I read like the blurb and I'm like, oh,
• 5:08
  this sounds good. And then I read the first few
• 5:10
  features and I'm thinking this doesn't really sound hopefully
• 5:13
  what I thought it would be. But I have to say, like opening
• 5:18
  up the book and then we talk about, you know, like you say,
• 5:20
  like, like standing on the table and this idea that your parents
• 5:25
  are telling you these ideas. And then you grow up as a child.
• 5:28
  I think, you know, if you do that, then you're going to end
• 5:30
  up. Is there one point she talks
• 5:31
  about eating? Is it the seeds from the orange?
• 5:34
  I think? And she's going to grow into a
• 5:36
  tree. Like, I just love because we've
• 5:38
  got a mixture of this, like child's imagination of what an
• 5:42
  adult says to them and then reflect on that.
• 5:45
  But yeah, you said it's not really like a plotted type
• 5:49
  novel. It's just that exploration of
• 5:51
  this person's life. I really enjoyed it.
• 5:54
  What did you think, Aaron? Oh well, what you've read
• 5:57
  before. You know, I'm, I'm really liking
• 6:00
  it and something that I, I don't know if this continues or I
• 6:04
  don't know if you guys have picked up on it, but it seems
• 6:06
  like nearly every other paragraph we swap to a different
• 6:11
  group of people and a lot of it seems to be gendered swap.
• 6:15
  So we start with like go to the father and then we go back to
• 6:19
  the mother and then we go to the father.
• 6:22
  And, and then when we're at the wedding, we have this is what
• 6:25
  the women are doing and this is what the men are doing.
• 6:28
  And this is what the women are doing and this is what the men
• 6:30
  are doing. And then it's changes to ages
• 6:32
  where it's like this is what the old people are doing.
• 6:34
  This is what the kids are doing. So I think that had almost like
• 6:38
  a rhythm to it where it was like, oh, this is nice to kind
• 6:41
  of like be jumping back and forth or jumping from like
• 6:44
  different group to different group and almost seeing like the
• 6:49
  mirror image of like what is happening with these other
• 6:52
  people at the same time. And it almost felt like a dance
• 6:56
  or something where it was like one steps over here, the other
• 7:01
  steps over here. I, I agree with you, Aaron, and
• 7:04
  how it was written. I think it's quite cool seeing
• 7:05
  the like, again, like such a broad painting of like this,
• 7:09
  these environments and this family and stuff actually really
• 7:12
  like, like Hannah, you said about like obviously the, the
• 7:15
  family stuff. Like the family tells her these
• 7:17
  things of like, you know, she will, if she climbs all over the
• 7:19
  table, you know, she'll be, uh, mutilated or whatever.
• 7:23
  So something bad will happen in her body.
• 7:25
  Umm, so this child is constantly like this is her parenting as
• 7:28
  being like being told that she would become this monstrous sort
• 7:31
  of creature, uh, if she, if she defies the rules and it just
• 7:34
  shows their parenting is like not great because they are just
• 7:37
  like manipulating her with like fear, but then also begins to
• 7:41
  build this image of this family and she begins to be like, we
• 7:45
  are the monsters behind the door, which I thought was
• 7:46
  really, really cool. Sorry, Aaron, this is like
• 7:48
  spoiler. But as the story goes on, you
• 7:51
  find out more and more like she starts to do bad things like
• 7:54
  more, more in the later, like I guess quarter and you know,
• 7:57
  there's like attacks on people and stuff like this.
• 8:00
  And it is very much she has become the monster that they
• 8:04
  have warned her, you know, not to like, by avoiding these
• 8:08
  things, she's become that that monster.
• 8:10
  And I think it's, it just shows that like the bloodline, like
• 8:13
  her parents, it's how she was raised, you know, like she was
• 8:16
  raised with this belief and the fear and she has become what she
• 8:19
  feared she would become. I love that her rebellion in a
• 8:22
  way is not going to like drugs or alcohol or anything.
• 8:25
  It's education, which I absolutely.
• 8:28
  Yeah, it's very cool. Everything she's like, I'm going
• 8:31
  to go get the best scores, whatever.
• 8:33
  Like I'm going to do it because there's a part in the book as
• 8:36
  well. It kind of made me laugh.
• 8:38
  There's that one girl in her class that gets like the best
• 8:41
  marks whatsoever and then she tries to steal her like essay to
• 8:46
  copy it and then she still doesn't get.
• 8:49
  I think she becomes the worst in the class or something then from
• 8:52
  that mark if I remember rightly. Yeah, she does.
• 8:54
  She like she like is the bottom of the list.
• 8:57
  Yeah, and it just, I just love, well, one I love obviously we
• 9:02
  know because the mind of freaking degrees I have at this
• 9:04
  point, but like going back and studying and learning something
• 9:07
  new. So I love that her rebellion,
• 9:09
  her rebellious act is, you know, educating herself, which is like
• 9:14
  something her parents really don't want her to do because
• 9:17
  what do they do? Like they just sit and watch
• 9:19
  horror movies every day and. Yeah, like the most grotesque
• 9:22
  horror movies, too. Yeah, they sound brutal.
• 9:28
  I know it's so like their life just shows so much abuse in it,
• 9:33
  you know, that way especially like the parental abuse, like
• 9:36
  they just don't really want to look after her, do they?
• 9:38
  They just. Yeah.
• 9:40
  Well, Hannah, I'm curious. Colin obviously has had the
• 9:45
  exact same childhood upbringing as me, since we're twins.
• 9:48
  But Hannah, I'm sure that you would have related in some ways
• 9:55
  to this upbringing to sorry, did did we ever get a name for our
• 10:01
  protagonist? I don't believe so, but please
• 10:04
  finish your thought. Yeah, I know.
• 10:05
  I'm. Like, are my parents going to
• 10:08
  see me right now? No, no, no, not I, I think me
• 10:11
  and Colin have also. Oh, OK, let me explain.
• 10:15
  So basically the whole point is her parents are never willing to
• 10:21
  explain something to her, are never willing to, uh, engage
• 10:30
  with her and her and curious nature as a child.
• 10:34
  So instead, they just use the island's superstitions and use
• 10:43
  that to fear monger her basically to prevent her from
• 10:46
  doing things. So yes, as we said, if she
• 10:48
  climbs on top of the table, if she's there for longer than a
• 10:50
  minute, she'll turn into a troll.
• 10:52
  So she like, has to like, jump off the table and be like,
• 10:54
  please tell me I wasn't there for longer than a minute.
• 10:57
  And then she's terrified that if she swallows any of the pips
• 11:00
  inside of an orange, that she will grow an orange, an orange
• 11:04
  tree inside of her. And she has this like terrible
• 11:08
  fear, but like, not that we had the exact same stuff, but I
• 11:13
  remember being absolutely terrified of eating like the
• 11:17
  seeds inside of watermelon because I thought it was going
• 11:20
  to grow inside me. I remember no, well, like, but
• 11:24
  there's, there's so many. Like I know that we don't have
• 11:27
  the exact same like superstitious background, but we
• 11:32
  we, you always hear people here say things like oh, demands
• 11:36
  coming, demands coming, be good, be good or like, is that?
• 11:40
  The one like if you keep your face like that it'll stay like
• 11:42
  that or something. Exactly.
• 11:44
  Yeah, exactly. Like we have our own versions of
• 11:46
  that. Yeah, I though I don't recall my
• 11:49
  parents ever like. But yeah, but that's the thing
• 11:54
  in this case, the parents are using it more as like a tool to
• 11:56
  like parent or child. Like do you know to like that I
• 12:00
  have the child parent itself like that's?
• 12:02
  Kind of. What about Santa like think here
• 12:05
  people will be like Santa's watching you have to be good and
• 12:08
  it's like that's a way of like being like like parenting your.
• 12:11
  But I still think that's more positive than yeah, but because
• 12:14
  you're still being like, I'm, I love my child, I'm going to give
• 12:17
  you loads of gifts at Christmas, just be on your breastfeed.
• 12:20
  Whereas in this there's it's a lack of any of that love.
• 12:22
  It's like they are so absent and distant and they're like, well,
• 12:27
  the fear is going to make her, is going to raise her, you know,
• 12:30
  and that's why she is such a broken, broken person later on.
• 12:34
  And like she, she hides in her education because that's some
• 12:37
  something structured that she understands, you know, it's not
• 12:40
  superstitious. It's very fact.
• 12:43
  I think it's also interesting that there there was one point
• 12:47
  that I read where the the protagonist said something along
• 12:51
  the lines of nobody talks on the island about having these
• 12:56
  beliefs, but everyone has them. So like everyone kind of has the
• 13:00
  same upbringing, but it's not like you wouldn't go to other
• 13:05
  people and be like, oh, there's monsters or whatever, but it's
• 13:10
  just kind of part of the culture that everyone is brought up in
• 13:13
  that it's just never directly like addressed by people amongst
• 13:16
  each other. Do you think it's more as well
• 13:20
  about how family shapes you as a person and then you kind of have
• 13:26
  your identity from that? And then you can almost like, I
• 13:30
  don't know, that reflection of, you see how broken or badly
• 13:34
  things are maybe from your parents and you want to break
• 13:36
  free from that, you know, that kind of generational trauma.
• 13:39
  I mean, I always think of us as like, there was like, post Good
• 13:44
  Friday Agreement, children breaking free from all the
• 13:47
  trauma, like when they talk about things like that in the
• 13:49
  novel. Yeah.
• 13:51
  I can see where you're coming from.
• 13:53
  Trying. To do with us, you know, but I
• 13:56
  don't know. Yeah, that's like, maybe for me
• 13:58
  is education as well, where my parents really pushed because
• 14:00
  they never really had the proper chance.
• 14:02
  It was like, OK, go to education.
• 14:05
  But Can you imagine them being like, no, you can't do this or
• 14:08
  you do that differently? Like, I don't know, there's like
• 14:12
  no optimism for her. It's all very yeah, like push
• 14:15
  her down and you stay down. Yeah, and her family and they
• 14:19
  just, they just don't like her. Like through the story, they're
• 14:21
  just mean to her and they, they act like she's just a waste of
• 14:24
  space and like, why did we ever bring you into the world?
• 14:26
  And it's only later on, whenever her dad, it is so sad when her
• 14:29
  dad like leaves them or whatever.
• 14:31
  And she is, you know, the mom then turns to her as like a
• 14:35
  source of like comfort, I guess. But she's still bad to her.
• 14:38
  You know, it's, it doesn't like fixings and like they just
• 14:40
  spiral into like destitution like all of them, you know, and
• 14:43
  it's like they're all stuck in sort of this sort of cycle of
• 14:48
  abusing each other and not giving actual love in this
• 14:51
  family setting that then leads to her becoming like a wicked
• 14:54
  sort of person. Yeah, it was.
• 14:58
  Yeah. Actually, now you think of what
• 14:59
  it is like. Like the?
• 15:01
  Whole. I can't think of the timer.
• 15:04
  Yes. Yeah.
• 15:05
  It's like you are. My mind was not working.
• 15:08
  You're really the the storytelling, you know, of her
• 15:11
  life that way. I didn't know.
• 15:13
  It was just something I'd thought about.
• 15:15
  What did you think of the culture of the island and kind
• 15:21
  of how that was represented? I mean, they, they don't like, I
• 15:26
  oh, I don't think they, there's stuff talked about like
• 15:29
  obviously talk about Creole and there's a lot of linguistics
• 15:32
  stuff that's brought up, which I think is quite interesting and
• 15:34
  like things like that. But I also don't know, I think
• 15:37
  it's more they're painting an image of like this.
• 15:41
  Like, I don't, I don't quote me on the history of like this
• 15:44
  island and its relationship with France or anything like that,
• 15:47
  but it seems like a lot of the people there are in really bad
• 15:50
  situation in employment wise. Because it seems like there's
• 15:54
  just no, like resources are that there's no funding going into
• 15:59
  things to increase this into like have new opportunities and
• 16:01
  stuff. A lot like, I can't remember
• 16:03
  what the figure is, but there's a very, very high figure of
• 16:05
  people who are unemployed in the story.
• 16:08
  And like they mentioned in multiple times how it's really
• 16:11
  hard to like get a job. So I like they, I think they
• 16:15
  hint towards being due to like the history of the island.
• 16:18
  But again, I'm not sure. And I, I don't want to say
• 16:20
  anything that's too definitive because like, I, I don't know,
• 16:23
  I'm, I'm ignorant of, of our reunions and sort of, you know,
• 16:27
  history. I think, yeah, like you said,
• 16:28
  it's kind of showing the lingering effects of colonialism
• 16:33
  and that poverty and that kind of struggle of cultural
• 16:37
  identity, you know, in that kind of time period.
• 16:42
  But big shout out to the translators of the novel because
• 16:46
  I really loved having the footnotes because sometimes when
• 16:49
  you read bits about say, like an island or life and it's maybe in
• 16:55
  like, say like French and you're like, OK, cool.
• 16:57
  I don't necessarily look it up all the time.
• 16:59
  But having the footnotes and then reading it got me like more
• 17:03
  into imagining the island or those like certain aspects.
• 17:07
  Really, really like that. Yeah, I had mentioned to Colin
• 17:11
  actually before that this was the first novel that I've read
• 17:15
  that has footnotes in it. And Colin had actually pointed
• 17:20
  out to me that it seems like the majority of them are actually
• 17:24
  from the author, not from the translators.
• 17:28
  Because when the translators do add footnotes, they they specify
• 17:33
  this is from the translators. But most of them don't have that
• 17:37
  caveat. So with, I was thinking that
• 17:41
  maybe it was the author writing the footnotes to benefit French
• 17:47
  readers in France, uh, who maybe are a bit, uh, ignorant to these
• 17:55
  things that that would be, uh, common knowledge within that
• 18:00
  reunion. I mean, I didn't even pick up on
• 18:03
  that, I suppose maybe because I'm reading it on the Kindle and
• 18:06
  I kept having to like, have I seen a footnote flick to the
• 18:09
  end? I don't know why mine was like
• 18:10
  that, but flick to the end, see the footnote, flick right back.
• 18:13
  So I didn't pay attention, which is why I'm always like, I should
• 18:16
  probably just go get the book, you know, for those moments.
• 18:19
  I think physical book all the way.
• 18:21
  I didn't really know what this island looked like.
• 18:23
  I know it was like it's off, it's off Africa or whatever and
• 18:28
  or sorry, I guess it's really close to Madagascar.
• 18:30
  When you look at Blue Reunion on Google images or sorry, just
• 18:35
  Google, it just shows you the island, like there's a volcano
• 18:37
  there and stuff like they all live on the side of this
• 18:40
  volcano. And it's so interesting because
• 18:43
  there's no visual of the tones or anything like that.
• 18:45
  It doesn't show anything. Normally when you look up
• 18:47
  places, it shows, you know, where people live.
• 18:50
  So I think like, obviously a lot of the story takes place in like
• 18:56
  urban sort of areas and stuff like that.
• 18:58
  Umm, and I think I found it interesting how a reunion, I
• 19:01
  guess, is like shown as like a tourist destination online,
• 19:05
  whereas really to this, like, it's quite cool seeing the, the
• 19:08
  view of the people of the island who aren't the tourists.
• 19:11
  Umm, uh, when getting that juxtaposition of how it's
• 19:14
  presented to the rest of the world.
• 19:16
  And this is a very true experience of someone who is
• 19:19
  from that, that part. Like they barely mentioned the
• 19:21
  the volcano and and the sort of nature of the of the island.
• 19:26
  I believe that there's two volcanoes.
• 19:28
  I think that is mentioned at one point where they, the
• 19:33
  protagonist gives, says something about how there's
• 19:38
  knowledge that's spread across all of the island and kind of
• 19:41
  lists. Like they, because they, I
• 19:47
  remember specifically they talk about how there's three
• 19:49
  different, there's a specific word that they used that was
• 19:53
  part of the footnotes, but there's three different, uh,
• 19:56
  topological and things of like, uh, sunken land, umm, on the
• 20:03
  island and there's two volcanoes.
• 20:05
  And they kind of had a list of different, uh, like geological
• 20:09
  or geographic, umm, landmarks. And I think they mentioned that
• 20:15
  there's two volcanoes. I like to obviously see what
• 20:19
  everyone else says about the book of times and I've had a
• 20:21
  really interesting part where someone likened the our like
• 20:26
  narrator I suppose. Is that what we would call her?
• 20:28
  Yeah, I don't know yeah. To so had said that she reminds
• 20:35
  them of Matilda from Roald Dahl's book because.
• 20:39
  The idea that they. Wanted to see her parents but
• 20:43
  her ways escaping is through learning.
• 20:46
  But I was like OK in Matilda yes, she does that and then she
• 20:50
  was off to live with Miss Honey and all and has like that I
• 20:54
  suppose from what we can gather like a nice life.
• 20:57
  But then in this book, I don't think she's like there is
• 21:01
  Matilda esque features, but she doesn't go on to have this
• 21:05
  wonderful life. And in the end, doesn't she end
• 21:08
  up in prison or something in the end because of what she sells
• 21:11
  in? Her little.
• 21:13
  Like bait shop. Yeah.
• 21:14
  And because then it leads me on to talking about isn't it like
• 21:19
  her family like lineage like also were like notoriously bad
• 21:23
  and end up in prison for like big crimes.
• 21:26
  So in the end she doesn't overly break the cycle, which I hate,
• 21:29
  but. Yeah, I think that's a point
• 21:31
  though, that she like Matilda, like you, like you've said, like
• 21:34
  I think it's just a bit more optimistic of a story and it's
• 21:37
  written for kids, you know, whereas this, this isn't, this
• 21:40
  is like a very honest, probably understanding.
• 21:45
  Like I can't help but feel like this is, I can't comment on this
• 21:48
  really, but I think it felt almost autobiographical and to
• 21:51
  an extent or like having known of people like this, you know,
• 21:54
  it's like I've and it felt very real in that way.
• 21:57
  And I think like, yeah, the fact she ends up in prison and stuff
• 22:01
  like that, it's it's pretty grim.
• 22:02
  Like the story is grim and and like her escape is reading and
• 22:06
  writing. And I thought that was really
• 22:07
  cool. And like I got some quotes on
• 22:08
  the reading writing section just because I really that obviously
• 22:11
  connected with me a lot. But it's so sad because Matilda
• 22:14
  escapes in the writing and finds her strength, the reading and
• 22:17
  finds her strength. Whereas in this, there is no
• 22:20
  escape with the right. It's just like it's a mental
• 22:22
  escape, but it's not an actual physical escape that lets her
• 22:26
  escape her sort of situation, you know, It just gets worse.
• 22:28
  It's funny how you mention Matilda because as you said that
• 22:33
  the on your run up there Hannah where you were like, oh,
• 22:36
  somebody connected this with a different story.
• 22:40
  I was thinking The Witches by Roald Dahl because the main
• 22:48
  characters never named and he is being he has he sees the
• 22:54
  monsters in the adults, umm, that nobody else sees because
• 23:00
  they just see them as regular women, but he sees them as
• 23:03
  witches and like he's like, I see the truth.
• 23:06
  So I thought that I didn't think you were going to mention a
• 23:10
  Roald Dahl book at all. So the fact you even mention a
• 23:12
  Roald Dahl book was was crazy. But that's kind of the road that
• 23:17
  you had me going down with my thoughts where I was like, this
• 23:20
  kind of matches up where it our main character in this is has
• 23:24
  all these beliefs in monsters, grew up believing in monsters,
• 23:27
  but actually like the adults around her are the monsters that
• 23:32
  that she is seeing and she's unnamed.
• 23:35
  I want to also like go back to like what Colin is in as well
• 23:38
  with them. You know, that kind of dark and
• 23:41
  then like not breaking the cycle.
• 23:42
  Kind of reminds me of like all those like French movies I
• 23:46
  watch, you know, like I watch those and like movie and stuff.
• 23:49
  Oh yeah, yeah, doesn't. Follow that.
• 23:51
  I feel like that American trope of like.
• 23:54
  Yeah, happy endings. You know, it always back to the
• 23:57
  end, happy endings. Yeah.
• 23:58
  Whereas in like French movies, it's like, no, no, dark, dark,
• 24:01
  dark, dark humor because, OK, right.
• 24:04
  There's this movie. It's my tradition to watch it
• 24:07
  Christmas. It's called like 8 women.
• 24:12
  It's a French murder Christmas musical movie.
• 24:16
  It's like the worst for the best.
• 24:20
  And in the end, you think the story's resolved and then, like,
• 24:23
  the character, like actually kills themselves and you're
• 24:25
  like, what? Like I hate so.
• 24:28
  And it just reminded me so much of that of like, you're not
• 24:31
  getting a happy ending. This novel is the first one, at
• 24:34
  least in a while. I can't none others come to my
• 24:38
  mind, but this is the first one that's made me physically laugh
• 24:42
  out loud while I've been reading it.
• 24:44
  And I, I know I've mentioned this line to you guys already,
• 24:48
  but just for the the listeners at the wedding, every group of
• 24:55
  people is kind of divided up into what they're doing and what
• 24:59
  the go to activity is at weddings in this community.
• 25:05
  So this quote says the elderly sitting in a dark corner waiting
• 25:10
  for dinner and death. And that made me laugh out loud
• 25:15
  because it was so unexpected but so fitting and just so blunt
• 25:21
  that it it, it was just, it really cut through.
• 25:24
  What I think this book really does well is blend the dark
• 25:27
  comedy with the harsh realities. Can't use in that balance.
• 25:31
  Also just completely reminds me of Home because if there's
• 25:34
  anything dark here, we're just like, Oh well, you know, life
• 25:37
  goes on like. Yeah, find his humor.
• 25:39
  In this yeah, I've been told many of the time my humor is too
• 25:43
  dark for people and. I'm like.
• 25:45
  I don't know. It's just how we get through
• 25:46
  things, you know? Based off There's a Monster
• 25:49
  Behind the Door, what do we think the judges will be looking
• 25:53
  for as their winner this year? Like, do you think this kind of
• 25:59
  sheds some light on the type of literature that they might be
• 26:04
  looking for? A story doesn't necessarily have
• 26:06
  to be something completely unique and and like a completely
• 26:10
  like new idea. Whereas they've taken something.
• 26:14
  I'm not like it's not simple, but that idea of, you know,
• 26:18
  childhood and that cycle of kind of abuse and like just had
• 26:22
  excellent storytelling. So that's it.
• 26:24
  I think an excellent storyteller and something that kind of maybe
• 26:29
  like grabs you in, leaves you with thought.
• 26:31
  Those are kind of my ideas on what maybe they look for a
• 26:34
  winner. What do you guys think?
• 26:36
  The thing that stood out to me this the most was like how it
• 26:39
  draw drew a spot, like there's something that people don't
• 26:41
  normally see. But more than anything, like you
• 26:43
  said, the storytelling, I think the writing of this is
• 26:46
  fantastic. And I think that's probably one
• 26:48
  of the strongest points. I think this is so much more
• 26:51
  character in it than most of the books that we read for the
• 26:53
  international Booker. Like the the the writing of it
• 26:56
  just sings in a way that the others did.
• 26:58
  And then I think, umm, like I can understand why this would
• 27:02
  have won awards because of that. So I'm hoping that they, the
• 27:05
  judges, that's the main thing that they like because I think
• 27:07
  that makes it so much more enjoyable to read.
• 27:09
  It's a journey, not just like the plot, you know?
• 27:11
  It's like the actual words on the page are really important.
• 27:15
  And since this award is geared specifically toward the the
• 27:19
  publishers, it's almost a congratulations or an
• 27:22
  acknowledgement of the publishers that you have chosen
• 27:25
  to publish this specific work because you have recognized it's
• 27:29
  worth, you have found it and you have brought it to the masses.
• 27:35
  And so I think it is a way of really lucking to those that
• 27:40
  that have put the effort into getting this book into our
• 27:43
  hands. Colin, if you want to go first,
• 27:46
  what, what are you giving this out of five?
• 27:49
  I think I'd give this a 3.5. I think it was higher as I was
• 27:51
  reading it, but I think the later half kind of lost me a
• 27:55
  little bit in terms of interest, even though that's normally the
• 27:59
  my favorite thing. It's more shocking elements of
• 28:01
  the stories, but I think it was more interesting to me the first
• 28:04
  half. So it was strongly for and I
• 28:06
  think it kind of slowed down to 3.5 and I actually kind of, I
• 28:10
  was nearing the point where I was like, if this book had been
• 28:11
  any longer, I would, it would have started to feel like a slog
• 28:14
  near the end. And so 3.5.
• 28:16
  I completely agree with you, Colin.
• 28:18
  It was a 3.5 because struggled to get into it kind of at the
• 28:22
  start and then I find in the middle, absolutely loved it.
• 28:24
  And then maybe slowly at the end I kind of find myself maybe like
• 28:29
  disengaging with a tiny bit. But I think, yeah, like we said,
• 28:32
  strong storytelling. 3.5 really good.
• 28:37
  Well guys, you can read it along and share your thoughts on
• 28:39
  Instagram. You'll find us at Bookies
• 28:41
  favorite book club. You can also e-mail us at
• 28:45
  bookiesfavoritebookclub@gmail.com. And you can find each of us on
• 28:49
  Instagram. I am at Aaron Rice Media.
• 28:53
  You'll find me at certified book yapper Hannah on Instagram.
• 28:57
  And you'll find me on Instagram at C under score, F under score
• 29:01
  rights, so CF rights. Share this episode with book
• 29:04
  lover you think will like this book.
• 29:06
  Read the podcast 5 stars, and let's end on a final quote from
• 29:11
  There's a Monster Behind the Door.
• 29:13
  Perfect parents only exist in movies, but my silences, my
• 29:17
  nightmares and my fearful tears perhaps persuaded mine that they
• 29:21
  were at least excellent storytellers.
• 29:23
  So they hadn't fielded everything in life.
• 29:26
  Bookies out.