When Ed the Talking Monkey moves
out of his cage at the lab and finds an apartment
convenient to public transportation, he has
to face not only the stares of confused humans
but the snobbiness of the more advanced experiments
that follow him into the new social scene.
In the space of a few days, he must decide
if his best interests lie with the humans,
or with a group of the enhanced apes who think
the humans are hogging all the best parking
spaces at the malls. Meanwhile, he falls in
love with a new young monkey at the lab, both
of them unaware that one of the researchers
has brought her in for an enhancement that
is far beyond what any of them can imagine
. . . or want.
This hilarious novel sprawls across the social
landscape, trips over the moral ottoman, bangs
its knee on the political hutch, and knocks
over some cultural knickknacks on its way
to a gargantuan climax that reassembles the
known world into a map of life in all its
forms, from the ridiculous to the broken,
from monkey to ape to human and back again,
from the selfish to the sacrificing, from
sea to shining, lonely, moonlit sea.
It also offers a plethora of helpful, practical
advice and how-to instructions on throwing
inter-species dinner parties, parenting do’s
and don’ts, conducting your own fiendish
experiments, taunting caged monsters, and
effective last words after the taunting turns
out to be a mistake.
Read
an interview with Walt Maguire
About
the author
Readers’ reviews:
