The Monster Opera

by Nancy Stohlman

A writer travels to Mexico City in search of a new story. . .but the monsters are already waiting for her. The more she writes, the more their whereabouts, as well as their desperation, are revealed. The Monster Opera is a gothic literary noir, a genre-bending novel-meets-libretto that combines recitative with dialogue, aria with prose, and ultimately asks the Who owns a story? The Monster Opera is a multi-genre extravaganza and the second flash novel available from Bartleby Snopes Press.

Genres: Fiction

70 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 2013

About the author

Nancy Stohlman's books include Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction (2020), Madam Velvet's Cabaret of Oddities (2018), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award; The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories (2014), The Monster Opera (2013), Searching for Suzi: a flash novel (2009), and three anthologies of flash fiction including Fast Forward: The Mix Tape (2010). She is the creator of The F-Bomb Flash Fiction Reading Series in Denver, FlashNano in November, and co-founder of Flash Fiction Retreats. She lives in Denver and teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Reviews

[Benjamin Dancer · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE MONSTER OPERA by Nancy Stohlman is a truly original conception. I read it first as a book. Then later saw the opera as a performance. Both were riveting.

THE MONSTER OPERA is a gothic tale set in Mexico City. It’s a story about love, about tradition. About patriarchy and the power of a woman.

The story reaches from the United States to Mexico City to Armenia: weaving the rich histories of all three cultures in a genre-bending horror story.

Then the reader begins to lose himself–or herself, as the case may be–as the story comes alive. It begins to write itself. The characters directing the narrator. Until something wholly unorthodox is birthed within closing the pages.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good writing transcends form, but it isn't often that you see the transcending of form be such an integral part of the writing. This book is a strange creature, but a delightful one. You might think that something as short as a flash novel is something you can hold all in your hands at one time, but Stohlman defies that simplistic conception. A complexity is achieved here that cannot be comprehended without reading the book. Poetic, enigmatic, and entertaining, if the world doesn't blur around you as you read then you aren't paying enough attention.

[Rebecca Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An experiment in form. As an old theatre person, the scenes were so vivid and vicious and viscous. I'm confused by the acknowledgement section - it seems like this was actually meant to be a real opera. But the main character isn't sure if she's birthing a novel or an opera. Still it was fun to read, fun to imagine.