Monsters, Alison Croggon
Monsters, Alison Croggon
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Monsters
a reckoning

Author: Alison Croggon

Narrator: Larissa Gallagher

Unabridged: 8 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/05/2021


Synopsis

"This figure I see in the foreground, this me. How monstrous am I? What does it mean to be a monster? From Latin monstrum, meaning an abomination . . . grotesque, hideous, ugly, ghastly, gruesome, horrible . . .

"I was born as part of a monstrous structure—the grotesque, hideous, ugly, ghastly, gruesome, horrible relations of power that constituted colonial Britain. A structure that shaped me, that shapes the very language that I speak and use and love. I am the daughter of an empire that declared itself the natural order of the world."

From award-winning writer and critic Alison Croggon, Monsters is a hybrid of memoir and essay that takes as its point of departure the painful breakdown of a relationship between two sisters. It explores how our attitudes are shaped by the persisting myths that underpin colonialism and patriarchy, how the structures we are raised within splinter and distort the possibilities of our lives and the lives of others. Monsters asks how we maintain the fictions that we create about ourselves, what we will sacrifice to maintain these fictions—and what we have to gain by confronting them.

About Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon is an award-winning novelist, poet, theatre writer, critic, and editor. Born in South Africa, she has lived in the UK and is now based in Melbourne, Australia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Deborah on July 01, 2021

This book, which is a collection of previously published articles, is sometimes titled Monsters: a memoir (rather than Monsters: a reckoning) which I think suits it better, as it is so subjective in the telling. If it were fiction, I'd admire the depiction of the viscerally uncomfortable relationshi......more

Goodreads review by Gail on March 26, 2022

What do we remember? How true are our memories? Alison Croggon examines these questions, and her own memories through the lens of her toxic relationship with her sister. There’s regret in this story, and longing for hopes lost. At its heart, this is a story of the vagaries of love and of relationship......more

Goodreads review by Rick on April 09, 2022

A family that is torn apart by dysfunctional parents and life events that change relationships between sister is the core of the book. This book also looks at privilege and it how it seeps into every part of life. I have mixed feeling about this book, the parts about her family compelling yet incomp......more

Goodreads review by Nell on July 09, 2022

This book had about a 60% success rate for me with it's mini-essays-in-prose-format, but the ones that hit home, hit hard. Croggon discussed racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, information literacy, poverty, eductaion, love, hate, despair, religion, spirituality, writing, history. It seems like a......more

Goodreads review by Sam on April 20, 2022

Just hard to even get into this book. Not my cup of tea and not what I thought the book would be about. I received this from LibraryThing Early Reviewer for an honest opinion.......more