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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Praise for My Name is Monster (Canongate, 2019):
‘A complex, accomplished debut… It kept me gripped from the first page, and the characters continue to live and breathe in my imagination’ – Kirsty Logan
‘A terrific piece of writing… Loved it’ – Joanne Harris
‘A riveting and disturbing novel, part twisted fairy tale and part dystopian nightmare, in which the primal human need to find meaning and love shines through the darkness of a ruined world’ – Mick Kitson
‘A gripping study of loneliness and what it can do to your psyche’ – Herald
‘Hale is certainly a skilful writer with a compelling voice’ – Guardian
‘Katie Hale has written two fascinating, flawed and compelling characters’ – Claire Fuller
‘Powerful and unflinching… This is a humane, tender and often painful exploration of the ways in which daughters consider themselves to be braver, smarter and more independent than their mothers, as well as the strength of love and hope in an empty world… A must-read’ – The Skinny
‘Taut, tough and sensitive, the narrative conjures up a devastated world, inhabited by two intriguing characters, with precision and real atmosphere’ – Daily Mail
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 