Monster's Chef

by Jervey Tervalon

From award-winning, Los Angeles Times bestselling author Jervey Tervalon comes a highly clever, twisting tale of suspense involving drugs, perverse sex, and poisonous celebrity worship, in which a man trying to rebuild his life becomes entangled in dangerous and deadly circumstances.

Once upon a time, Gibson was a successful chef with a popular restaurant and a beautiful loving wife. He was also a drug addict with a habit that nearly destroyed him.

Fresh out of rehab, he's now using his skills to feed his fellow halfway house residents budget gourmet meals--a talent that attracts two shady women who offer him a job cooking for a music superstar named Monster. Though Gibson doesn't have a good feeling about his seeming good fortune, he needs a job.

Arriving on Monster's compound, Gibson senses that trouble is still on his tail. First, he's asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Then he meets the compound's gardener, who warns him not to go outside at night--and tells him that to stay alive he must see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing.

It is advice that proves all too true when Gibson discovers a dead body near his bungalow a few nights later. Suddenly, all hell is breaking loose . . . and Gibson is at the center. Now he has to figure out how to escape this terrifying nightmare . . . and whether he can.

Genres: Fiction, Food, Adult Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2014

Reviews

[OutlawPoet · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read this book, I kept wondering how it is that the author of this book isn't going to get sued by the estate of a certain one-gloved megastar! While I've seen many TV shows and read many books that are more than loosely based on real people - even this person - I've never seen one that was quite so blatant about it.

Whatever else you can say about the author, he's got chutzpah!

It's hard to separate out the scandalous reality of the 'fictional' Monster, but the book itself was fascinating. This is a down and dirty world that the author has created. Gibson, our main character, enters a surreal and fantastical world that is just teeming with rot under the surface.

The characters are uncomfortable to read - every last one of them. But they are also utterly fascinating.

The book isn't for everyone. It's seamy. Even reading it, you feel a bit touched by all the nastiness that's out there. But it's even more uncomfortable because you start to wonder again about that real life person the book is so obviously shadowing. You start to wonder where the fiction in the book becomes reality.

Well written, depressing, and now I need to read something sweet.

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose this is a story of a man who is battling his addictions against a demon of an employer. Gibson was a success chef whose drug addiction destroyed his career and marriage. A chance encounter while on probation lands him a dream job as a personal chef to an enigmatic, reclusive, controlling superstar who calls himself Monster. Monster’s culinary requests challenge Gibson, but not nearly enough and he finds himself bored in a miserable position in the middle of nowhere. The pace picks up a bit when a dead body is discovered near Gibson’s bungalow - but sadly, the pace stalls and plot never really delivers.

I found the characters to be underdeveloped; yet Monster’s description and antics reminded me of an iconic pop superstar who also dealt with a child molestation scandal. Even at the end, I’m still confused as to who/what Monster was or was to represent. The secondary characters are so ancillary that it’s hard to care about them or their fate. I really wanted to like this novel as I’ve really enjoyed some of the author’s previous work; but this one was a bit disappointing.

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't say I much enjoyed reading this book. What mostly kept me reading was that I told myself that I would understand it all in the end, that somehow it would all be explained. The ending offered little explanation of Monster or his motivations or anything really. As the pages went by, I felt like I knew and understood the main character less and less. But for all of that, I have to say I really enjoyed the style in which it was written. Not a bad book at all, perhaps just not my cup of tea.

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

WTF. I gotta stop reading these weird books. Ugh.

[TC · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was well on its way to a four-star book, until I got to page 186, where all the build-up of the previous pages just flew spectacularly off the rails and landed with a thud that would make a disposable TV movie's climax look like high art. An interesting and insightful book about the twisted and warped world of a mega-pop-star (obviously modeled on latter-day Michael Jackson) had so much potential to be an amazing read that would have stayed with me; but then the end went completely non-linear, in a way that I simply cannot reconcile with anything that came before. It was rushed and meaningless; as if the author got an angry email from his editor at midnight demanding the finished story be in his inbox by 8am. Far from being able to use anything from earlier in the story to shed meaning on the ending, I'm instead left feeling like anything I found meaningful was a fluke--that the whole book was a conceit; a writing exercising in imagining what it must have been like to be on staff at the Neverland Ranch circa 1995.

Unless I completely and utterly missed the point of the whole novel, never have I seen a story go so bad, so fast.

[Tina Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome twisted tale of suspense! When a chef named Gibson goes to work for a notorious rock star known as Monster, he has no idea what he's getting into. The job pays more than he imagined, but the mansion he lives and cooks in is pretty creepy, especially at night. And since he signed a confidentiality clause, he can't say much about all the weird things he sees...things that either terrify him or turn his stomach. Not ideal conditions for a recovering drug addict.

Jervey Tervalon's prose is phenomenal! This is the first of his books I've read, and I was immediately struck by his writing in this story that is moving, totally unpredictable, suspenseful, sometimes terrifying, each page packed with emotion. The paranormal elements are very well written and keep you guessing. The delicious recipes are an added bonus for foodies.

Highly recommended read for fans of edgy suspense and the paranormal.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the worst books I've ever read in my life. Great beginning with potential and suddenly this book turns into a godawful clunky, idiotic, shitty mess with a Michael Jackson-type villain. I mean, I'm so confused and yet so angry I spent the last couple hours finishing what I thought might actually be a decent book.

Fuck this book.

[Melissa Fish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mixed up messy story about a recovering cocaine addict and his brief employment with a Michael Jackson/Kanye celebrity entity. Have you ever listened to a not-close friend talk about a dumb dream about being chased by some silly shit? If you've been through that, you don't need to read this. Oh, and every chapter begins with a recipe, that you won't ever look at twice, so um....bonus?

[Tiffani Briggs · Rating 2 out of 5]

This. Book. Was. Weird.
But I had to keep reading because I wanted know what was up with Monster. I still don't know what was up with him. I was glad that Gibson had a happy ending thought. In spite of his addiction.

[Amelia Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhere along the way in 2014 I had acquired an uncorrected proof of this novel. It had been sitting on my self and I randomly grabbed it when I went away the first weekend of the year. As we relaxed in our hotel room before heading out for the night I looked at some reviews of the book and found a debate about the influence of Monster. The majority of people feel that Tervalon pulled his inspiration from Michael Jackson and a handful think everyone else is crazy and that's not the case at all. I wasn't 100% sure if this would be my kind of book I was willing to give it a try, at least to see if I would be with the majority of people reviewing the book.

The book follows Gibson as he starts on a new path in his life. He had been a successful restaurant owner/chef before drugs took it all away from him, including his wife. Gibson is living in a half way house cooking for the residents. The woman who runs the house has a girlfriend who works for Monster, the famous musician/artist. Monster is looking for a new personal chef and Gibson (through a random interview and encounter) gets the job.

This is were this odd book gets weird. Monster lives secluded in the mountains in a compound dubbed Monster's Lair. Staff must sign an intense confidentiality agreement which basically keeps them from talking to each other. Monster is on some weird food diet which leaves Gibson with barely any work. Monster is described as having once been black but he feels he's reached another level and is no longer confined to descriptions of everyday people.

Things start going south when a young boy (a guest of Monster's) is found dead on the grounds. By this point I started to question what I was reading. This book had me so confused that I just started to skim the remaining chapters. I finished the book and sat there thinking "WTF did I just read?"

I can honestly say I'm with the majority and really see the MJ in Monster, though the character is a twisted characterization of the real man. The book was okay. I think the writing style turned me off more than the story did, there was just a flow issue for me while reading.

I received a copy for an honest review from the publisher.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to pin this one down.. it was definitely compulsively readable. I couldn't stop reading once I started - read it straight from beginning to end, which is rare for me, but it was also not too long of a book. It held me interest and provided some amusement. There wasn't the extreme creep factor that I expected.. it got creepy and .. well weird more often then creepy, but I expected something a little.. *more.* I just don't know how else to put it.

I totally didn't expect that the Monster that this guy ended up working for would be basically the spitting image and likeness of Michael Jackson. Seriously, he's lucky MJ is dead because there are so many similarities that there's NO mistaking who he based Monster's character off. Down to the black man bleaching his skin white and having an exclusive mansion that has tons of mysterious kids with no chaperones running around. And that's only the similarities I can think of off the top of my head. All in all.. it just made me feel like the book wasn't as original as it could've been. It had such a great blurb and I was really expecting so much MORE from it, it could've been fantastic! Instead .. it was just alright, definitely worth a quick read through, but not something you're gonna be raving to the rooftops to all your friends to read.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book on a list of books to read this summer, then happened to find it on the bookshelf of my local bookstore so I picked it up. I very shocked when I was told the price of the book at around $25 for 200 pages, making it easily the most expensive book I've purchased this year when you factor the price vs. page.

I found the book to be kind of annoying. I felt at times it was too wordy, to the point it started to hurt the narrative from moving forward. Where plot points would just kind of happen then we'd get trapped back into the same redundant dialog over and over again, until another plot point would come, and then all of a sudden we're quickly thrown into a wild sequence of events that makes us wish we could sample Mr Chows drugs in order to digest all the fuckry that concludes the book.

[RJ McGill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I flip-flopped all the way through this book, between 'I like it' and 'I don't like it'. The similarities between the main character and narrator, Monster and late Michael Jackson are blatant. I found this distracting. The character development was thin, making it difficult to feel an attachment to them. Tervalon definitely has talent, although it took a few pages to get into his humorous, hip style. But once I got it, I was laughing out loud a lot. About half way through it lags a bit. At times it felt undone, like everything wasn't explained or wrapped up.

This is a fast read, with some tasty recipes I can't wait to try. All in all its an okay read. It's just not a book I would read again.

[Alia S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Su-uper dumb. I say this even though I somehow got through the whole thing without noticing it was about Michael Jackson—now that every single other reviewer has pointed that out for me (thanks), I can’t even credit Tervalon with imagination. The pacing is awful; the most charitable thing to assume of the total collapse in the last quarter is that either an editor or a creditor ripped it out of his hands while he was still writing. I’d say the book might do better on the shelf for YA fiction, but even that’s not a good use for it because it’s full of drugs and pedophilia. A dead loss.

[Viva · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars = "it was ok" by GR's rating system.

The writing style and actually the whole book was a bit of a train wreck. The writing style was hard to read but I was able to finish it because it was a short book (210 pages) and because the words used were simple. I was actually quite sympathetic with the narrator (Gibson) and felt we suffered together from the writing. I wish there was more meat to the book but there was just a long intro before anything happened, then a quick finish. Good premise, fair story and poorly executed.

I got this free as an ARC.

[Nala27 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked this authors earlier books. Didn't get this one. Not entertaining at all

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well... let’s see... good things about this book is it was a quick read, I liked the style of writing, I wanted to continue reading until the end to find out what the hell was going on. The recipes are a neat idea at the start of every chapter.


The bad things about this book.... “monster” and how he was described is pretty damn close to a real life celebrity so that was always niggling at the back of my head.

I may try one of the dozen recipes... maybe... they seemed overly complicated

I felt other character development was lacking

The sex was unneeded

You never really find out what’s going on and it doesn’t explain shit in the end

And what was with that dog thing? Why the hell wasn’t that explained?

I do like happy endings though that’s why this book got three and not two stars

[Marissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf p. 79. I wanted another speculative foodie fic, something like The Sol Majestic. This is not that. Whatever the paranormal thing is that slipped this on to my radar, it hasn't happened yet, and I'm too bored to finish the rest of this and find out what it is. Gibson (_William_ Gibson, if you can believe no editor caught that) is a navel gazing recovering drug addict who fucked up his own life and can't stop kicking himself about it. So he takes a job at not-Michael Jackson's compound and is bored. Great. So am I.

[T.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

What A Ride

Not what I was expecting but good nonetheless. Our chef is hired to cook for Monster...an insanely rich music star. You think this is going to be a story about the chef and his redemption. But it's way more than that. May be looking for more of Tervalon's writing.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me feel genuinely gross while reading it which I suppose was its intent so points for that. Beautiful layout but confusing ending - a rollercoaster of a story.

[Catherine (The Gilmore Guide to Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gibson is a rising star in the world of food in New York until an escalating drug habit costs him his restaurant, his wife and his freedom. When he makes it out of jail and is paroled to a halfway house it is his manager’s girlfriend who suggests to him that he move to L.A. to become the private chef of a world famous rock star known as Monster. And so Gibson goes, in Jervey Tervalons’s new novel Monster’s Chef. He leaves behind his life and moves onto Monster’s massive, isolated compound (known as Monster’s Lair) in the mountains of the Santa Ynez valley in California. Despite the isolation and oddities of his new boss, Gibson adjusts to the life, right up until a young man is found dead on the lawn near his bungalow. Suddenly, privacy and the quiet life are gone as Gibson is confronted by local police as a suspect.

It is only as Gibson enters Monster’s inner sanctum in the second half of Monster’s Chef that things start coming together in a way that feels more like reality than fiction. As Tervalon fleshes in more of Monster’s details, namely his being a black man who bleaches his skin for whiteness, his penchant for entertaining an ever-changing cast of young blonde boys, his fondness for unusual diets and supposedly life enhancing treatments, a breathy high voice…well, need I go on? The parallels grow to the point one can almost hear the lawyers lining up to get at the author because by the novel’s wild end there is little doubt who this freakish former singer is supposed to be. When Gibson agrees to help Rita (the artificially inseminated mother of Monster’s baby) rescue her child from Monster, the finale moves beyond reality and even fiction to a fantastical crescendo that will either work or leave you wondering what you just read. For me, it felt like the only conclusion to a tale that, wherever its source originated, can only end badly.

[Michelle Chamberlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy from Goodreads First Reads. Jervey Tervalon weaves a tale about a chef who is a recovering drug addict who manages to become the chef of a music superstar at his 'lair'. There are many things that made me think that perhaps the music superstar or "Monster" as he is called in the book might actually be hinting at a pop star we all know. This book deals with gritty subject matter, drugs, murder, etc. Even with the "Monster" character, the gritty subject matter, I did find I was strangely wondering what was going to happen to our chef caught up in the midst of all of this. There is a touch of the paranormal to the story. Loved the recipes that were included. You will enjoy this!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

What would you do for money? What would you ignore for money? These are the questions chef William Gibson must ultimately answer about himself.

This book starts strong but somewhere in the middle it feels like two drafts were stitched together: the author's tone changes; his descriptions of Monster Stiles, the richer than rich mega musical star to whom Gibson thinks of selling his soul, begin to contradict earlier passages; Gibson's relationship Monster suddenly backslides into something it has already surpassed.

An interesting first-person character study but ultimately if it had been longer I would feel as if I'd wasted my time.

[Nell · Rating 2 out of 5]

So. I was into this book until it started going into what I'll only refer to as "trigger warnings." Not because it never happens, but it became very clear that the character of Monster was beginning to resemble a certain celebrity who has had this attached to him. After that, it became harder to view the character as a super producer and more of just a superstar. And the ending? Yeah. Anticlimactic. Lost interest after a while.

[Mysteryfan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A chef with a drug problem is hired to work on a music superstar's private estate. Weirdness ensures. I debated the rating and classification on this book for quite a while. On the one hand I read it in one sitting. It was more gripping than I originally thought. None of the characters are likable (intentional, I think, on the author's part). I didn't see the similarity to the MJ situation that other readers saw. I didn't care the the hallucinatory nature of sections of the book.

[Mick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really enjoy it that much, in fact, I found the beginning rather boring. It does pick up later, but it's also somewhat odd. Monster's character, who we don't know much about, is strange, but the author is not very original in that regard. The ending is quite abrupt. Not my style.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every negative stereotype you can think of about Michael Jackson sums up the character of Monster. I kept thinking of MJ throughout the whole story, even though I don't believe the negative things. The book took me two days to read. It was just OK.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very intrigued until the last quarter of the book, at which point it took a very strange and very hard left turn into territory that I hadn't been expecting at all. Rather than this being a good thing, the transition was so odd that it completely took me out of the story.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read an ARC. Quick read but much too derivative with the "Monster" character. Needed to develop the main character so reader understood his self-destructive behavior.

[Amy Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The end just left me scratching my head. It's as if he was scratching his head, and thought, "let's just finish it tonight, however it goes."