Beach Reads Author Series: Adrienne Brodeur - Little Monsters

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As part of Titcomb’s Bookshop’s Beach Reads Author Series, Titcomb’s welcomes local author Adrienne Brodeur (Wild Game) to speak about her new novel Little Monsters (on sale July 11th) at Titcomb’s Bookshop on Monday August 7th at 6:30pm.

Titcomb’s Bookshop owner Vicky Titcomb says of the book: “Adrienne Brodeur’s exquisite and insightful writing again shines in her newest book, Little Monsters. The setting is Cape Cod in the summer of 2016. Adam Gardner, an oceanographer approaching his 70th birthday, fears his professional life is coming to an end. His wife and the mother of their two children died years ago and the children, now adults, are dealing with their own issues and their father’s lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder. Little Monsters reveals Adrienne’s deep love of Cape Cod and her real empathy for and understanding of family members coping with the effects of mental illness. I loved this book!”

This is a free event, but registration is required and space is limited. Registration can be completed on titcombsbookshop.com or by calling the store at 508-888-2331.

Books will be for sale at the event, and the author will be signing books after the conversation. Those who are unable to attend the event may order signed copies of Little Monsters on Titcomb’s Bookshop’s website or by calling 508-888-2331.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets—for fans of the New York Times bestsellers The Paper Palace and Ask Again, Yes.

Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.

As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.

Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the memoir Wild Game, which was selected as a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post and is in development as a Netflix film. She founded the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, and currently serves as executive director of Aspen Words, a literary nonprofit and program of the Aspen Institute. She splits her time between Cambridge and Cape Cod, where she lives with her husband and children.

Event address: 

Titcomb’s Bookshop
432 Route 6A
East Sandwich, MA 02537
www.titcombsbookshop.com
508-888-2331