49 pages • 1 hour read
Adrienne BrodeurLittle Monsters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “April”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Adam”
The narrator describes Adam Gardner, a famous marine biologist, and his insomnia. Each morning, he wakes up and writes down remnants of his dreams before dressing. The narrative includes a sample, which focuses on Adam’s interest in the sea and questions about topics ranging from whale sounds to infinity.
Adam goes to the doctor in Hyannis Port to treat his insomnia, finding his old doctor has retired, replaced by a young doctor. Adam notices that the doctor wears orange socks, and he dismisses the young doctor inwardly. Adam discovered a new species of crabs at the apex of his career. He observes the young doctor, introduces himself with his title, and shakes the doctor’s hand forcefully.
The doctor prescribes medicine. Adam considers the impending election between Clinton and Trump, souring at the prospect of voting for either candidate. Adam decides to stop taking his medicine, which manages his bipolar symptoms, and use his manic episodes to further his work. Sitting in his chair and watching birds chase a larger Osprey over the trees, he describes seeing his younger colleagues as the smaller birds.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Ken”
Ken Gardner, Adam’s eldest child and Abby’s older brother, finishes a deal to create a high-end senior living community on Cape Cod with money from his wealthy father-in-law. Ken notes how the balance of power will shift between him and his father-in-law. His 10-year journey in designing and planning the senior community has produced a financial windfall. He recalls his marriage to Jenny, Abby’s friend from college, discussing his conversion to Episcopalianism at his father-in-law’s suggestion and cycling through his past. He leaves a voicemail with Jenny and thinks about his long-deceased mother, Emily. Observing the erosion that plagues his property line, his recent financial victory feels dampened.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Abby”
Adam’s daughter Abby arrives late for an interview. She is being profiled in Art Observer. Noting the profile’s importance and castigating herself for being tardy, Abby observes how difficult getting exposure in the art world is outside of the major metropolitan centers.
With her dog, Frida, in tow, Abby meets the interviewer, Rachel Draper. They walk along the beach while Rachel asks questions and records Abby on her iPhone. She reflects on the interview’s importance and her reticence in discussing her work, recalling a previous brush with success after Jeff Koons mentioned her artwork.
The two walk along the beach before returning to Abby’s studio space, which Rachel loves. They discuss Emily, Abby’s mother, who died soon after Abby’s birth, and the difficulties Emily’s unrevised will created between Ken and Abby. Rachel asks questions about Adam’s second wife and Abby’s stepmother, Gretchen, with whom Abby remains in contact. Abby mentions Jenny and recounts their differing paths and how she introduced her to her brother. They discuss Abby’s job teaching at a high school.
As she shows Rachel her newest painting, Abby thinks to herself that she will give Adam this painting for his 70th birthday, proof of her new pregnancy. She hasn’t told Jenny, aware that their relationship has changed.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Steph”
Steph Murphy and her wife, Toni, examine their newborn in the hospital. Steph grapples with newly discovered knowledge: Her father, Michael Murphy, is not her biological father. As a police officer, Steph confesses that she should have seen the clues. Steph recalls how she slowly pieced together her mother’s secret as she nurses her newborn son for the first time.
She remembers a sermon from days before her son’s birth and observes that her mother cried after the priest gave a sermon about truth and lies. At her parents’ home following the sermon, Steph discussed her genetic condition, myotonic dystrophy. After much prodding, Steph’s mother admitted that she had a one-night stand with a man she later found out was married. Steph’s father doesn’t know that Adam Gardner is her biological father and that Abby and Ken are her half-siblings.
Part 1 Analysis
Little Monsters is narrated by a third-person omniscient, or all-seeing, narrator. It explores the inner lives and thoughts of each of the main characters. The novel offers varying perspectives on the relationships between Adam and his adult children and his adult children’s memories of childhood. The first chapters introduce the lives of Adam, Abby, Ken, and Steph. They emphasize the competition between Abby and Ken for their parents’ approval, revising and expanding on the biblical narrative of the first father, Adam, and his children, Cain and Abel. “Little monsters,” Adam’s nickname for Abby and Ken, evokes Cain’s murder of Abel. The siblings’ tension over the Arcadia, their mother’s art studio, echoes the biblical siblings’ competition for God’s attention. Steph’s introduction offers a way to dismantle this conflict, giving Abby a sister and a new extended family by the end of the novel.
The allusion to Genesis hints at the importance of Family Dynamics and Secrets in the novel. The patriarch, Adam Gardner, strives against age and time to solidify an already stellar academic reputation. He is unaware that his children see him differently based on his frequent abandonment and, for Abby, his silence about her brother’s sexual abuse. Steph, an unknown daughter and the result of a drunken night nearly 40 years earlier, further threatens to destroy the image of the Gardners as a healthy and successful family. Adam’s sins and mistakes do not end with his generation, affecting his son and daughter.
These chapters examine Toxic Patriarchy. Steph is Adam’s daughter with Mary Beth, an Irish Catholic woman living in Boston with her husband, Michael. The novel never explicitly calls the sexual encounter between Adam and Mary Beth, who was a teenager at the time, nonconsensual. However, Mary Beth “couldn’t remember big chunks of the night and had been naïve enough to be unaware that she’d lost her virginity until she missed her period” (36). Mary Beth, the victim of an adult man, internalized Adam’s transgression. This impacted not only her but also Steph and Michael.
The novel explores Ambition as a Key Character Trait. Steph sees her “ambitious nature” as biological. She connects to the Gardners, all of whom are similarly ambitious. In the three chapters that precede Steph’s, each of the Gardners feel driven or talk about their aspirations for greatness, from Ken’s transformation of senior care to Adam’s work on cetacean language. The costs of ambition begin to emerge, becoming high in the chapters that follow Part 1. Ken places appearances before reality, while Adam places knowledge before mental health. Only Abby, who slowly accepts her ambition, approaches her work and passion with care. Pregnant with the son her father desperately wants, Abby’s autobiographical paintings gain the notice of Art Observer. Her hopes “to be seen” by her family and to have her pain acknowledged become part of her ambition (29). As the novel progresses, Abby tries confronting her abusers through her art and processes her trauma. As she copes with unfolding secrets and confronts the past, she demonstrates resilience.
