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Charles Lambert
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Little Monsters Hardcover – 7 Mar. 2008

by Charles Lambert (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 22 ratings

How do you recover from something like that? Carol never quite does. Sent to live with her aunt, who barely tolerates her presence, Carol is grief-stricken, and all too aware she’s not wanted. Desperate for love, but unable to ask for it, she nonetheless – and almost despite herself – finds it where she least expected. Her Uncle Joey is the only one to notice her when she’s a teenager; years later, he’s also the man with whom she builds a home and a life. But when Carol helps to rescue a young refugee from the sea, that life suddenly threatens to unravel, just as surely as it did when she was thirteen.

Written in tight, spare prose, Little Monsters is a novel of creation, redemption and obsession; it’s also the story of what it’s like to experience the unthinkable – and what happens next.

'Charles Lambert is a seriously good writer' Beryl Bainbrdge

'Sharp like sherbert, poignant and gripping' Griff Rhys Jones

'With exquisitely tender writing and quiet authority, Little Monsters is a powerful debut' Jill Dawson

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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Picador
  4. Publication date
    7 Mar. 2008
  5. Dimensions
    13.8 x 2.9 x 21.6 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0330450360
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0330450362
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Product description

Review

'Beautifully written and crafted, and more compelling than many thrillers' -- Daily Mail

'Charles Lambert's Little Monsters is a first novel which is more than just a `promising debut'.' -- Literary blogger, John Self

'The parts of the book dealing with Carol's adolescence are very good indeed.'
-- Guardian

'This is the story of a young girl ripped apart by grief...finding the stability she craves in her Uncle Joey' -- Good Housekeeping

'an accomplished coming-of-age novel...Little Monsters is a deceptively simple tale, beatifully told.' -- Me and My Big Mouth

About the Author

Charles Lambert was born in Lichfield, the United Kingdom, in 1953. After going to eight different schools in the Midlands and Derbyshire, he won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge from 1972 to 1975. In 1976 he moved to Milan and, with brief interruptions in Ireland, Portugal and London, has lived and worked in Italy since then. Currently a university teacher, academic translator and freelance editor for international agencies, he now lives in Fondi, exactly halfway between Rome and Naples.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 7 Mar. 2008
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0330450360
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0330450362
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 434 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.8 x 2.9 x 21.6 cm
  • Best Sellers Rank: 4,691,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 22 ratings

About the author

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Charles Lambert

Charles Lambert

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Charles Lambert was born in England in 1953 but has lived in Italy since 1976. His first novel, Little Monsters, a Good Housekeeping selection, was published in 2008, the same year as The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories, the title story an O. Henry Prizewinner. Any Human Face, his second novel was described by the Telegraph as 'a slow-burning, beautifully written crime story that brings to life the Rome that tourists don't see - luckily for them.' The View from the Tower, also set in Rome, appeared in 2012, followed in 2014 by With a Zero at its Heart, one of the Guardian's top ten books of that year.

The Children's Home, a dystopian fantasy, took readers by surprise in 2016 and was followed in 2017 by Two Dark Tales and, in 2018, by Prodigal, which explores what we do to one another in the name of love and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize. The Bone Flower, a Gothic ghost story set in Victorian London, appeared in 2022. His latest novel, Birthright, a psychological thriller, was published in April 2023.

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4.2 out of 5 stars
22 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Jue
    5.0 out of 5 stars Book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 April 2018
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    My grandson loves this book. Quick delivery.
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  • Dewar
    5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling first novel
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 August 2008
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    I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and read it in one sitting. It was very unusual and I would recommend wholeheartedly. Quiet and thoughtful, it lures you in, not letting go until the very last page.
    One person found this helpful
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  • zedtwed
    2.0 out of 5 stars Dull and lacking
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 2013
    I really must be missing something here because for me, the book lacked substance. It started off well but once it took itself to Italy there were so many unanswered questions I felt like I had started reading one book and finished another. *SPOILER* how did she end up with Josef? Why did he leave her so suddenly (yes because of the girl but it seemed a bit over the top, a few visits and bosh he was gone). Why were they in Italy? Where had the boat been coming from?

    It was just half a story, which I could sum up in 133 words:

    Girls parents dies, lives with aunt who hates her, ends up marrying her step uncle, moves to Italy, rescues a girl from the sea, uncle leaves. End of story.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Eileen Shaw
    4.0 out of 5 stars "I have got a girlfriend now, her name is Maudie..."
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 March 2011
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    Little Monsters is a story of childhood suspended, for both Carol, whose father has killed her mother, and for Kakuna - named for a Pokemon figure - a refugee of uncertain age. When Carol becomes - there is no other word for it - besotted - with Kakuna, everything she holds dear seems to be at risk.

    It is also the story of Nicholas, bullied and brutalised when he joins the army, to escape which treatment he absconds in a manner leading to tragedy.

    These unfortunate children (Nicholas is much younger than his years) are most often focused on the possibilities of escape and this theme haunts the book, robbing it of much hope, making this a very dark story of childhood. Comforts and moments of happiness are not much available to Carol in particular, living with an aunt who shows her no kindness whatsoever and resents her very existence. As is almost obligatory these days, the time-line is treated to a fractured narrative, though sensitively organised into two consecutive areas - one being Carol's childhood and the other her later relationship with her un-related `Uncle Jozef', a Polish refugee in England, and with Kakuna in Italy.

    It is very dark, quite pessimistic and at times things go much counter to what you would like, as a reader looking for fulfilment (reassurance?) of some kind. I also felt the narrative shying away from some areas of Carol's life, such as how she married Jozef (if she did, I wasn't clear on that). But perhaps these shadows are part of the darkness of the narrative, and maybe he is right to withhold some of the detail in line with the fatalistic sense that what will be will be. I am impressed, if not gratified, with the dark heart of love and friendships with which Lambert deals so skilfully.
    One person found this helpful
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  • fiona b
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good condition ,arrived on time.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 August 2015
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    Lovely story and educational. Came in good condition and on time.
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  • Jenny
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2015
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    Funny story
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  • Rob Spence
    5.0 out of 5 stars A tour-de-force
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2009
    This novel is a study of damaged people, but also touches on the possibilities of human renewal in the face of what used to be called man's inhumanity to man. The opening sentence has already lodged itself in my consciousness as one of the most startling and arresting I've read: "When I was thirteen my father killed my mother." I still think Burgess's opening line in Earthly Powers (Vintage Classics)is my favourite, but this is now a high new entry on the chart.
    The central character and narrator, Carol, deals with the traumatic events of her childhood, and her exile to the loveless home of her aunt, by reinventing herself. The narrative switches from the memories of an adolescence growing up in the pub owned by her aunt and her Polish refugee husband in the sixties, to the contemporary setting of the camp for asylum seekers in Italy where the present day Carol works. Lambert's prose is delicate and nuanced, and one of the delights of the novel is seeing how each narrative strand informs the other, through the repetition and variation of images and references. I was particularly struck by the use of what pompous academics would call tropes of flight, used by the author to link the strands and the characters. It is a beautifully realised novel, and one which manages to deal with very big issues on a human scale. I loved it.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • EC
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on 4 September 2016
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    Got it!
    Thx!
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  • books and beyond
    5.0 out of 5 stars Against Sentiment
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 October 2010
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    While the phrase "Little Monsters" may conjure to mind something playful, or even affectionate or precious, there is nothing whatsoever precious about Lambert's novel which examine the ways in which we are alienated, become orphaned, abandoned, and how in turn we may respond to others like us. One of the things I liked most about the book was the way, at every turn, when Lambert could have gone for an easy, sentimental or precious moment, he stayed brutally honest to the complexities of human nature and the drive to survive. This makes it possible to tell the story of a woman's life, through her eyes, from the moment of her mother's death and her father's imprisonment without flinching, without soggy emotionalism, and yet have the character later in life feel a compulsion to reach out to another young child alone in the world, with complicated results. Just like life. The title is apt as the girl is often called that by her aunt, and people often say this about children affectionately (though not W. C. Fields), but there is not intended sentiment in it's use by characters in the book OR by the author. Far from seeing his characters as monstrous Lambert manages to make them sympathetic. Like the movie Monster, starring Charlize Theron as the Mass Murderer Aileen Wuornos, Lambert casts a clear eye on his characters' actions and asks us to consider with him what is truly monstrous. His ability to inhabit the mind of the protagonist and create both a likeable and eerily emotionally abstracted character is the master stroke of this novel. I felt changed by the time I'd finished reading it. It's powerful stuff.
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  • David Pagan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simply written and affecting
    Reviewed in the United States on 17 June 2014
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    This is the first book I have read by Charles Lambert and it will not be the last - it is rare to find a book written with such beautiful, simple English. It tells of Carol, a young teenager who, having witnessed her Father killing her Mother, is put into the care of her Aunt, who hates and resents her, and her Uncle, whom she eventually marries. The story is told in two time-frames (Carol as ward, and Carol as an adult), where she finds herself drawn to a boat-refugee child in Italy, who, of course, is the up-to-date version of the unwanted, teenaged Carol. Written with clarity and extreme honesty, this is a book not to be missed.
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