My Name is Monster (Canongate, 2019)
After primarily considering myself a poet for over half a decade, and feeling as though fiction was somehow ‘off limits’ because of this, I finally plucked up the courage to start writing a novel towards the end of 2016. This novel became the first draft of My Name is Monster.
Published in paperback in the UK in 2021.
‘A terrific piece of writing;
tough and tender and insightful.
I loved it.’
– Joanne Harris
Inspired by Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein, My Name is Monster is a novel about power, and about the strength and the danger in a mother’s love. The novel centres on a young woman called Monster who believes she is alone in an empty, post-apocalyptic version of Britain. Slowly, piece by piece, she begins to rebuild a life. Until, one day, she finds a girl: another survivor, feral, and ready to be taught all that Monster knows.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award.
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My Name is Monster was written with mentoring through Penguin Random House’s inaugural WriteNow scheme, and was listed in the Guardian’s start-of-year round-up of what to read in 2019.
My Name is Monster has been translated into German, Italian & Turkish, and will also be on sale in the US from 2021.
Katie Hale 