A Review and Analysis of the Novel Monkeys (2000) by Susan Minot
The novel Monkeys (2000) by Susan Minot, is a bittersweet story about the lives of the seven Vincent children and their parents, an upper-middle class suburban New England family. The Vincents, a well-to-do but emotionally troubled (due to the alcoholism of the father), family live in an upscale Boston suburb. The seven Vincent children are often called "monkeys" by their mother, especially when she is trying to round them all up to go somewhere together, such as to church or on a family outing. It is from this (sometimes often all that affectionately-spoken) nickname that Rosie Vincent bestows on her large brood that the book takes its title. The storyline of Minot's Monkeys follows the lives of each of the seven Vincent children, as they grow (uneasily, due to the "family secret": their father's alcoholism that inflects all aspects of family life) toward adulthood and independence. Monkeys seems at the outset a mere heartwarming story about a large boisterous American family. However, the reader is quickly disabused of that idea. For example, even as the seven Vincent children get ready for and attend church in the book's opening scene, each of the family members, including the narrator, seem emotionally separate even
Because of this family's upper-class status, then, it is all the more important, especially from the parents' perspectives, for all of the children to help maintain an outer appearance of uncomplicated, controlled, family normalcy, and even for family members to fool themselves and each other that their family dynamics are "normal". In this way, then, social class is relevant, and integral, to the story. In another key way, though, social class is less-than-relevant because whatever a family's social class, a secret such as alcoholism impacts relationships within a family in similar ways, e.g., no one can be open about the problem, or honest with one another about how it in fact interferes with family life and/or makes family members feel personally. In this way, each member of a family that has a secret alcoholic member, like this one in Minot's Monkeys (2000) is forced to deny his or her true feelings. As a result, such habitual denial becomes a seemingly natural way of life, whatever a family's social class. So, within this family, part of the pretense is that prestige, wealth, and occupation must all be vigilantly maintained at the expense of honesty. Prestige, wealth, and occupation thus become focal points: thereby further enabling obfuscation of the real problem. when physically together: alone with his or her thoughts and childish priorities, and unsupported emotionally by any of the rest. Each child clamors for privilege and attention, yet none seem to ever be truly noticed as individuals, by their mother or even by one another. Further, within Minot's novel Monkeys (2000), social class plays a role, in that, within upper-class families like this one, the importance of everything's appearing "perfect", at least from the outside, is crucial to maintain. Mrs. Vincent, for example, is "keeping up appearances", so to speak, by regularly taking her seven children to church as a family unit (with Mr. Vincent's Protestantism being the ex
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Approximate Word count = 1333
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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