Pretend I'm Dead

Pretend I'm Dead #1

by Jen Beagin

Miranda July meets Mary Karr in this brilliant debut novel from Jen Beagin, Whiting Award winner and “one of the freshest voices I've read in years—funny, wise, whip-smart and compassionate” (Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins), about a cleaning lady on a quest for self-acceptance after her relationship with a loveable junkie goes awry.

Jen Beagin’s quirky, moving, “frank and unflinching” (Josh Ferris) debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona—almost twenty-four, emotionally adrift, and cleaning houses to get by. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways.

In search of healing, Mona decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs, all of whom have one or two things to teach her—the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she’s trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past she left behind.

The story of Mona’s journey to find her place in this working-class American world is at once hilarious and wonderfully strange, true to life and boldly human, and introduces a stunningly one-of-a-kind new voice in American fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Mental Health, Humor, Book Club

Audiobook

First published October 1, 2015

About the author

Jen Beagin holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award in fiction. She is the author of Pretend I'm Dead and Vacuum in the Dark. A former cleaning lady, she lives in Hudson, New York.

Reviews

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Pretend I'm Dead was 50 shades of fucked up but boy was it funny.

“When he went to order their drinks, he asked, “What's your poison?”
“Oven cleaner,” she'd said with a straight face.
Her sense of humor sometimes made people—herself, included—uncomfortable.”

This novel is divided into four chapters, each one focusing on a particular relationship of our protagonist. In the first chapter, 'Hole', we are introduced to Mona, our main character, a twenty-something who works as a cleaning lady in Massachusetts and volunteers at a clean-needle exchange. Mona doesn't have any particular aspirations and she is fine with her job. At the clean-needle exchange, she meets a man she nicknames 'Mr. Disgusting', “on account of his looks and dirty clothes”. Mr. Disgusting is in his forties and has clearly been through the wringer. The two get involved, and things get weird and messy fast. In the following chapter, 'Yoko and Yoko', Mona moves to Taos where she lives in an adobe house. In spite of her reservations, she gets close to her neighbours, Nigel and Shiori, a couple that gives some strong 'cult' vibes. Mona understandably ends up nicknaming them Yoko and Yoko. Mona misreads the situation and things also get weird between the three of them. In 'Henry and Zoe' Mona becomes convinced that her newest client, Henry, a seemingly nice guy, is a less than a decent person. This chapter crosses quite a few lines, and it is bound to make readers queasy. The last chapter, 'Betty', sees Mona becoming close to another client who happens to be a psychic.
Given that each chapter is more or less self-contained, these end up reading a lot like vignettes, each centering on a different period of Mona's life. However, is only by reading all of them that we begin to understand Mona and her past. Her fraught relationship with her father is of particular importance in the overall narrative. Mona's mind often turns to Mr. Disgusting, so that he also becomes a perpetual presence in her story. Through Mona's 'misadventures,' the story examines themes of loneliness, connection, and belonging.

In spite of its offbeat main character Pretend I'm Dead made for a morbid, grotesque, and occasionally obscene reading experience. Yet, it was also undoubtedly one of the funniest books I have ever read. Mona's wry sense of humor, her deadpan replies, and her mental meanderings (which lead to some freaky fantasies) were thoroughly entertaining. While none of the characters are strictly likable, they were certainly fleshed out. With a few selected words, Beagin brings her characters to life, rendering the way they look and behave with clearcut precision.
As funny and absurd as Pretend I'm Dead was, the novel touches on quite a lot of serious issues (sexual abuse, drug addiction, depression, suicidal ideation, trauma, incest). It is remarkable that Beagin manages to explore these through Mona's lenses. Dark humor indeed!
I really liked the way the story was written, which is saying something as I usually don't care particularly for 3rd person narrations that refer to the main character as 'she' (as opposed to her name, in this case, Mona). Beagin has an ear for dialogue and a talent for portraying those thornier feelings and emotions.
If you are a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh, Melissa Broder, Raven Leilani, or Jean Kyoung Frazier chances are Pretend I'm Dead will be up your street. Those who aren't keen on books that examine challenging, if not controversial, topics or cannot stand vulgar or non-PC content might want to give this book a wide breadth.

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

Overdue book review #437. I read this IN JUNE. I suck so hard at posting shit this year. Good news is I kind of remember this one – better news is it kind of meanders a little bit of everywhere so there’s no reason to get wrapped up in the details. Basically, if your idea of a good time is reading about a 20-something housekeeper (with a side hobby of taking bizarro selfies in her employers’ homes) who volunteers at the local methadone clinic handing out clean needles (with a side of looking for love in all the wrong places) who moves across country to find herself (with a side of hippie dippie neighbors and a commune in New Mexico) then this might be the book for you. It earns every single one of its Stars from me for being unique (well, maybe an extra one for that title and cover because that's the only reason I picked this up in the first place). Originality is something that has become almost extinct but Jen Beagin delivers it in spades . . . .

[Diane S ☔]

I think I've dnf'd more books in the last month than I have in the last year. Started out promising, very different, quirky main character who volunteers with a needle exchange program. She falls for one of the users that she calls Me. Disgusting, who ends up breaking her heart. She goes to Taos, which was a big draw for me, in an attempt to reclaim her life. She shares a house with two strange characters Yoko and Yoko and we'll this is where it lost me. Half way no less. It turns a bit crude, lewd, and I'm a bit of a prude. Well kind of, but only when I feel it is unnecessary. Anyway, I will leave Taos and start another, with which I hope I have better luck.

[leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

after reading and loving jen beagin's most recently published novel big swiss back in february, i knew i had to read her other work. pretend i'm dead is beagin’s debut, and similarly to big swiss, it is funny, dry, grotesque, and very dark - although the weird sense of humour and beagin’s eccentric writing style spares it from being too heavy. the protagonist mona’s voice is so compelling that you soon forget that it’s written in third person (although i personally don't mind third person), which made the book such an enjoyable read despite how uncomfortable it was at times.

read this if you liked big swiss or you like weird/funny books. i’m definitely going to be reading the sequel/companion to this next.

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a strange sort of attraction at first sight (the title alone is so intriguing) negotiated down by reluctance to engage with a 24 year old protagonist. Yes, I know, I’m an ageist, but can you blame me? This generation has been just all sorts of unattractive. Although I’m very glad to have finally decided to follow my initial instinct and check this book out, because a. it’s pretty terrific and b. it’s set judging by cultural clues in the mid 90s, entirely different, far more tolerable generation. Also weirdly aimless and existential, but in much more agreeable way. And, despite her young years, the protagonist here is actually the real deal, someone who can carry an entire story by her idiosyncratic self. In fact, she’s a singular literary creation, stumbling through life to a very distinct and distinctly irregular beat, ghosts of her past shaping the shapeless contours of her present in a subtle and compelling way. Not an easy book to describe, not particularly action driven, definitely more of a personal journey (discovery just sounds too new agey) sort of thing, about a young woman and a variegated cast of supporting characters in her life. But it’s just so good, so well done, so original, darkly humorous in a perfectly understated manner, quirky in the best possible way, such an original perspective. Not often can someone so unrelatable be so completely engaging and for this major kudos to the author, it’s quite an accomplishment, particularly for a debut. Strikingly odd, immensely readable and definitely memorable book. Brief at only 208 pages and such a quick read, I actually didn’t want it to end, but it was lovely while it lasted. Thanks Netgalley.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Any book that starts with a young volunteer at a needle exchange developing a crush on one of her junkie clients, deducing from his refusal of sterilizing equipment that he's not sharing his needles and is therefore single and eligible, is definitely a book for me; and that's merely page 1 of Jen Beagin's remarkably subversive Pretend I'm Dead, all the more astounding for coming out from the esteemed academic publisher Triquarterly Books at Northwestern University. A nearly perfect combination of character, plot and dialogue, this short "novel in stories" tells the engaging tale of super-messed-up protagonist Mona, a twentysomething slacker in a pre-iPhone world who starts the book as the only young white house-cleaner in the entirety of New England, where she engages in such art-school-flunky activities as taking photos of herself as a murder victim in clients' homes just for her own amusement. As Mona's world starts expanding, then (including an actual romantic relationship with the junkie in question, trying heroin herself, then through a series of complicated circumstances ending up in Taos, New Mexico, now cleaning the trailer homes of burnt-out New Agers), our trainwrecky hero stubbornly refuses to learn anything from it all, but nonetheless starts becoming just a little wiser about the world almost against her best intentions. A feverish page-flipper that I burned through from start to finish in only 24 hours, the only reason this isn't getting a perfect score is that the storyline loses track of itself for a large chunk of the second half, the result of this book originally being written as four long self-contained stories and only afterwards being hooked together as one narrative; other than that, though, I can confidently state that this is one of the most enjoyable and emotionally moving novels I've read in the last year, a strong recommendation to one and all that will undoubtedly be making our best-of lists at the end of the year.

Out of 10: 9.7

[Dagio_maya · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mona è una ragazzina di ventitré/ventiquattro anni fornita di un sarcasmo inadeguato alla sua età.
La sua è una storia probabile ma la verità è che non reggo più questo tipo di scrittura costruita ad effetto.*
Non trovo profondità ma un palese intento di stupire usando la volgarità che si svuota di altri significati se non riflettere se stessa.
Finito per il vizio di finire ciò che inizio...




*- Con questo intendo passaggi come il seguente (qui descrive il padre)

"Mickey portava la sua divisa: berretto giallo, a rete nella parte dietro, con su scritto GLI IDRAULICI HANNO L’ATTREZZO PIÚ GRANDE, una camicia da lavoro a strisce bianche e azzurre con il suo nome ricamato sul petto e un paio di jeans con dei grossi buchi all’altezza delle ginocchia. Emanava un odore che era un misto di alcol e sigarette, con una leggera nota di fagioli rifritti e sudore di cento sbornie. La barba bruna minacciava di invadergli completamente la faccia; la pelle di una guancia era tutta bucherellata, come se avesse dormito su dei sassolini. Ma ad attirare erano i suoi occhi: limpidi, verdi, magnetici. Erano cosí vivi da sembrare cartoni animati: quando parlava di soldi, le pupille si trasformavano in simboletti del dollaro; quando parlava della madre di Mona, diventavano cuoricini."

E cosi via.......................

[Geoffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I loved this book. The narrator's voice is so compelling. (So much so that I just had to go back and check that it was in fact in the third person, not the first person). And hilarious--I genuinely burst out laughing at several points. Everything about Mona feels real and immediate and believable. And it's not just her -- the characters she interacts with feel real, too. Sometimes in a book like this, with a main character like this, the main character is the only one who seems to "get it"--who recognizes the world as it really is, while everyone else is blindly stumbling. But the people Mona talks to pick up on her little comments and respond as other intelligent, real people might--which is delightfully refreshing.

I wish this book had been two, three times longer. I would have loved to spend more time with Mona. And I'm definitely going to read whatever else Beagin writes!

[Chrisolu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book ended like a French movie. 4.5 stars.

[MisterHobgoblin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretend I’m Dead is a really unusual, psychedelic gem of a novel. Mona is a twenty-something volunteer in a needle exchange programme. Her dad, Mickey, is a deadbeat and the only stability she has in her life is the sole-trader house cleaner she works for. Mona has a brain but no particular drive. She works hard, but without direction. When she tells people she is a cleaner, they assume she must have something else she is working towards - white girls don’t clean houses.

The novel follows Mona over a couple of years, focusing in turn on four relationships and how they change the direction of her life.

First up, there’s Mr Disgusting, a middle aged junkie to whom Mona supplies needles. She begins a friendship because why not? Apart from the junk, he’s a decent guy. He tells Mona to move from her Massachusetts dead end to Taos, some kind of hippy Mecca in New Mexico. So off she goes, with the remaining three sections focusing in turn on her relationship with her neighbours Nigel and Shiori (English and Japanese); then a rather sick businessman called Henry who seems to have lost his inhibitions, and finally a psychic called Betty.

Each of the relationships allows Mona to grow in unexpected directions. And always, behind everything, there is the fractured relationship Mona has with her father.

What makes the novel is Mona’s charm. She is utterly guileless, but not stupid. She is aware of people’s failings and deviousness; she simply chooses not to get involved. As a cleaner, she sees people’s secrets. She could use them for good or for evil, but mostly she just dwells on them in a brain that seems to be perpetually half-tripping. She has a strong personal morality and will happily do things that are against her best interests if she thinks they are the right things to do, yet her morality is unlikely to coincide with those of 90% of the population. She looks at the world with a mixture of astonishment and resignation.

And for the lack of direction, she dreams. Idle dreams, not always nice dreams - a bit like Jenny in the Threepenny Opera - where something will change and she will be the lynchpin around which the action revolves.

There’s quirkiness too. Mona likes photography, taking selfies in compromising positions in clients houses. Just to mix things up a little.

Looking back on this, it all sounds a bit whimsical. It really isn’t. It is gritty, it is real, it is funny and it is sad. If it were a film, it would be Amelie.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of my dissatisfaction with this book is the disconnect between how it's being sold - a quirky tale of new beginnings - and what it is - a dark look at the scars of childhood abuse. Most of the time, I'd just shrug off the marketing and try to judge a book on its own merits, but this time I ended up with the opposite of what I wanted, so fair warning here not to trust the cover copy.

Pretend I'm Dead is dark, episodic, and shallow. Beagin has a vivid, visual style and the voice is spot-on but the humor didn't work for me at all and the overall effect is dreary and depressing.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first 65 pages, which was one long chapter (almost like a standalone novella) called “Hole.” Mona, a 23-year-old art school dropout turned cleaner, was raised by a cousin after her addict parents’ death. Like Beagin, who cleaned houses for five years to support her art, Mona collects vacuum cleaners and considers vacuuming her primary hobby. She enjoys the repetition and inadvertent intimacy of her job – it gives her glimpses into other people’s inner lives. In her spare time she volunteers for a needle exchange program and thus falls in with “Mr. Disgusting,” the nickname she gives to a thief and Dumpster diver 21 years her senior.

It’s all super-quirky and unnecessarily crass. The closest comparison I can make is with Miranda July’s The First Bad Man. Throughout I kept thinking to myself, this should really be written in the first person. This is a strong character who can describe things for herself. The style is readable; I could have forced myself through the last two-thirds as Mona lights out for New Mexico. But with so many other books waiting for me, I decided I didn’t want or need to keep going.

[debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

4-5*s
Mona, the main character, is not a well grounded person, but she is a quick witted kind of funny and a truthful and principled observer of her world. I think Beagin is a talented author, and I found this book uniquely and decidedly enjoyable.
I went with 5*s because the story was so well written(especially when compared to others I've read lately), I loved the cover and title, and as Kelly(and the Book Boar) mentioned in her review-"Originality is something that has become almost extinct, but Jen Beagin delivers it in spades."

[WURLD · Rating 2 out of 5]

All I got out of this was a reminder that I need to vacuum my room

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!!

Absolutely loved this book from start to finish and quite simply one of the best stories that I have ever read.

Unusual, totally absorbing storyline, fantastic characters, quirky situations, random curve-ball comments, sharp and dry witty humour and all wrapped up in a tale which addresses serious issues with sensitivity, compassion and understanding from an original and quite unique point of view.

And to think that the highly talented Jen Beagin has kindly provided us with a sequel, ‘Vacuum in the Dark,’ to sink our teeth into…can’t thank her enough, and avidly looking forward to carrying on with the adventure.

Mona, the hard-working cleaning lady with a passion for photography - a legend and, for sure, one troubled, complicated, yet truly endearing individual, that simply is too good to be missed. Quite brilliant!

Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 full stars…and would award more if possible.

[Naima · Rating 1 out of 5]

cw racism, fetishization of woc, drug use, overdose, anti mexican slurs and sentiment (use of s slur), explicit childhood sexual abuse/rape, grooming, stalking, homophobia, cult/cult mentality, ableism (use of r slur), whorephobia, pedophilia, beastiality (includes excerpt/description of beastiality ‘erotica’)

i have a lot to say on this book, none of it good, but i do want to turn the mirror to face the goodreads reviewers who rated this quite highly. i don’t think that this book does anything novel or really interesting- it shares a bisexual working-class protagonist with most of the genre, and mona’s fumbling through life is almost a hallmark of this ‘unhinged woman’ genre. however, one thing that sets it apart is its unwavering dedication to having a bigoted and unrepentant white female protagonist. the largest and most obvious instance being when mona just constantly jokes about looking ‘like a sp**’- another, that an entire section of the book is dedicated to ‘yoko and yoko’, the british husband and japanese wife next door, the latter of which mona sexualizes beyond reason (paragraphs upon paragraphs about imagining her naked and demure and nurturing). i kept waiting for the text to have some sort of consequence for this- thinking that surely the author couldn’t find this behavior to be just another quirk for a protagonist, but it never comes. ultimately, what it demonstrates is that the author thinks that if you’re traumatized enough, you can pretty much inflict any direction of bigotry (slutshaming, calling mexicans slurs, masturbate to pedophilic erotica, calling drug users disgusting)… the racism overall is the most damning chunk of this book- it shows that the author (and, to an extent, the GR reviewers who rated this four and five stars) thinks that racism is not a harmful, cruel mode of thinking and acting, but rather a negative but inconsequential character trait, grouped in with ‘unhinged’ behavior and just as quickly forgiven if you tell a ‘good enough’ story.

[Laura Santoski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I did not see the end of this book coming - as in, literally didn’t realize the book was about to end. It’s definitely the kind of book where nothing much happens, but the character is interesting and quirky enough that you’re fine with being along for the ride. It’s crass and strange and unpredictable, and I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but if weird meandering books are your thing, I liked this one.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not at all what I was expecting, this was funny and dark in a Miranda July/Ottessa Moshfegh kind of way. I was unsure about it at first but the voice won me over completely.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm at a loss as to how to best describe what I just read, but if you like snarky black sheep characters, cynicism, and the writing of Alexandra Kleeman- this is for you. I couldn't help but toss my head back and laugh at the absurdity. Mona is a 24-year-old cleaning lady and an artist. She sometimes calls her somewhat estranged father for random conversations despite her complicated history with the one-armed man who handed off to another family member when she became too difficult and her mom had left, but otherwise she has no friends or social life apart from the minor interactions she has when caught snooping on the job or is accepting her meager pay.

The droll 3rd person narration really uplifted her subtleties and odd-ball-ness. At the beginning of the book she is in a relationship with a man she names Mr. Disgusting, an ex-addict whom she met while volunteering at a needle exchange. She stops hearing from him and assumes he's dead after their last meeting involved her momentary death after he shot her up with the heroin/coke concoction he'd assembled for himself. Mona is soon laid off from her cleaning company and takes advice from the voice in her head (Mr. Disgusting) and moves to New Mexico where she can insert herself into a small cast of bizarre locals: Henry, her first regular client; her new neighbors "Yoko and Yoko"; Betty, the psychic; Johnny the bouncer; Jesus the closeted gay man.

Quite entertaining. Will look out for more from Beagin!

[jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucid and smart, without a hint of self-consciousness. Induced laughter, tears, and a few PTSD panic attacks. Well worth the heart palpitations, though. I wish I'd written it.

[Chantel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on substance abuse, suicidal ideations, suicide, the sexual exploitation of a minor, parental abuse, psychological abuse of a minor, spousal abuse, physical violence, & others.

Marinating in contempt is the unspoken wound. Revolting & tender, this flesh never heals, it seems it hardly tries to stitch its cells to that of a pulsing blood that keeps the rest of the body alive. The psyche of the patient, ground zero, the earthling trembling in its alien cage, reminds the body of Monstro’s gastric intent. Few people escape the whale’s sour belly.

Fiction & the friction of life alter one like tar, searing soothing tunes of a melody only the wooden puppet child might hear. Yet, brave the waters one must & sail the seas, one has, in hopes of finding the ghoulish laughter of a depraved circus neither Romanesque nor Baroque in lunacy & yet home to all the misfit toys of the world.

Mona’s introduction to the reader is curt. She is a person who is depleted & rather soiled by the shoes in which she roams the ungodly earth of her foes. This story follows her love affair with a man she named “Mr. Disgusting”; it explores her travels to the tundra & makes clear her salivating, wetly erotic intent of racism to all whom she encounters.

Readers fond & familiar with Beagin’s work may find themselves staring down a portal of chipped teacups & spoiled saucers; Mona reassembles Greta, the main character of her recent novel “Big Swiss” (2023) in ways that shade & shudder the patterns of cool tone recreation in a rudimentary world.

In its essence, this story follows Mona as her aunt leaves town to move to Florida, after selling her cleaning business. Mona works in the business & has for some time but is fired. She engages in a sexual, if possibly romantic relationship with a man who is attempting & failing to remain sober from a Heroin addiction. Finally, Mona moves to the desert after Mr. Disgusting vanishes in the night & commits suicide, leaving her to figure out her way in life alone. Mona meets people in the town, each rather awkward & unbound by the strict nature of social norms until she begins to recall the filthy & abusive behaviours of her alcoholic father throughout her childhood.

This is not a story for the faint of heart. Mona is a character who is deeply traumatized & practically despondent. The narrative she explores showcases her quirky nature though, it is never presented as such. Mona is wrought with turmoil she cannot name nor does she have the scholastic knowledge to garner her strengths towards healing; she is blind to her wounds & yet she picks at the open flesh like a vulture.

This story is not necessarily an example of good writing. Mona, though vivid in nature, is a default of Beagin’s abilities. Having read two books by this author I have come to wonder whether she is capable of writing anything other than the character who is racist, a wee bit stupid, & rather abused by her environment.

Should a reader have no experience with Beagin & her work, they will not receive a discouraging word from me. When I read “Big Swiss” (2023) I enjoyed the atrocious & utterly transparent idiocracy of the plot. Beagin writes characters & stories that allow a reader the opportunity to refuse to enter the book from the first page.

For those among us who are more attuned to the boorishly uninspired nature of racism, these characters will feel too familiar, rather too identical to have been published as a fluke. Where does this leave the reader? Can a person find enjoyment in a similar story? Do each of the author’s works need to be unique & bubbly like a newborn lamb to be deemed worth publishing?

While reading about Mona’s antics I found myself on the ledge of intrigue & abandon. What I hoped would make Mona unique was her transparency about her experiences. Mona approached her sorrows in a way that slowly engaged the reader; performing an act as she did, Mona chose to lie to the reader. One is likely to forgive her for this as she has good reason.

Yet, once again I was reminded of Greta & her perverse nature towards herself & her life. As I could simply rehash this feeling throughout many paragraphs, I will leave this thought here. Mona’s adventures near the Nightmare King are of her own making though, a kinder reader will pang & whimper with pity for her.

The writing style of this story allows for enjoyment & maybe, if one is up for playing the Devil’s Advocate, they will be willing to forgive the jolts of trashy racism that plague the story. Mona is not very smart, she is not an intelligent person & so her blatant inability to gauge the world around her is a personal flaw.

One may believe that with some time & exposure to the world, she may change her ways though, the deep-seated void in her mind may act as a roadblock to progress. I state this clearly as the story does not covet racism, rather, racism is deeply ingrained in Mona’s person. Her travels & exposure to people from different walks of life do not embolden empathy & understanding within her. She remains firmly in the shadow of self-inflicted blindness, which leaves me curious as to her self-awareness overall.

While I read, I pondered the execution of this story. Beagin introduces Mona & the scene is set to see her explore life. Yet, this doesn’t happen. I am aware that there is a second book that follows Mona in her adventures but, the lake-like nature of the first story did not necessarily imbue me to long for a conclusion. Mona’s love story with a man who experiences addiction to opiate drugs does not grant the story any curvatures or depth. Of course, not all stories require the trembling narrator of old recounting a hero’s journey. However, Mona’s story goes nowhere, over & over again.

What is the reader meant to deduce from this narrative? Is the reader meant to giggle at Mona’s love for a man who chooses Heroin over her? Can a reader state with confidence that this was his free will? Will a reader accept that Mona’s relationship with a forty-five-year-old man with severe addiction, paired with a will to die, was a good decision? These questions do not negate the enjoyment of the story, I am certain that some readers will find a beloved tale of torment & rippling petals to devour. However, as I ponder what the answers might be, I also wonder why Beagin wrote this story.

Mr. Disgusting is meant to be a funny nomenclature but, people in the world of reality do experience the life he has lived. Mona was a child who was sexually exploited by her father & she exhibits signs of severe & long-term stress & trauma to her psyche; realities that encumber the real world as well. Therefore, should a reader seek to consume this book as a cleanser of truths? What part of this story makes it a worthwhile read?

Perhaps it is not my place to state as much. As I have said in the past, I write these reviews primarily for myself as a study of my self-awareness & archives of knowledge & understanding. By default, simply because I do not have a clear answer to this question does not mean that the book is unworthy of reading or was unworthy of being written.

The tricky part of this truth is that the story is something that someone wants to tell. In this case, the Sommelier is Beagin herself. One is certainly at their liberty to question what intrigued her about writing such similar characters twice or even, what made Mona a voice she was intent on transcribing.

Unlike Beagin, I find little reason to invest energy into this story. I say this but, I know it made me laugh. My reviews are harsh, I will never pretend otherwise. This is because the literature I consume is harsh; the plagues, prose, prude violence of philosophy, masochistic nature of politics & geography stained to the skin of the writer’s brains that I love are all morbid in their absurd critical nature; their truth is the truth which we live as human beings.

This leads me to believe that Beagin did not intend for me to philosophize her work, neither did she wish me to read it. The nature of the beast is that it will roar & roam, I just so happen to be meditating in my garden when its bulbous fangs loomed overhead.

The joviality behind this story is not one I would recommend. I laughed at Mona, rather not with her—she was not a person for whom humour colours the horizon. Maybe this makes me a cruel audience. On the other hand, the villains of this story are hard to beat & so I forgive myself for the cupped nature of the rubble in my thorax. I must reflect on the plot itself & when I do so I am reminded that very little happened. Mona moved houses, she sold her possessions, she cleaned another person’s home & she took awkward photographs of herself.

At times, this story feels like a call for help. Yet, how can a reader intervene? Between the phone calls to her father & the inner monologue that hollows her, Mona is a person deserving of warmth. She was exploited & hurt, repeatedly by agents who hired themselves for the job of guardian. Throughout her life Mona deserved a friend, she needed a caretaker & everyone watched her stand in the water as the tide rose to greet the base of her neck. It is uncomfortable to feel disdain for a story that presents a character so flawed & brutalized.

Ultimately, this was not a bad book. In time, I may come to reflect on it with fondness & may even find myself reading the second book. Beagin’s writing is corny & quirky like a Y2K time traveller intent on spreading the word of their gospel.

I cannot forget the trite nature of the jokes or the silly qualms it presented to the character but, my eye roll & the time I spent here, were gifts to Mona should she need them to move herself forward. Though, in her own time she may find that her life is as it is.

I worry that intervening this far along will prevent her from feeling whole as a person is justified in feeling. My uncertainty stems from the hollow grooves in the ground where Mona lays to nestle closer to the goons in the desert whose soundless rustle will stun her to sleep.

[Shannon Canaday · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didnt get this book at all. It was a weird walk through the life of a burnout. It was written well enough that I never thought to quit it but the whole thing was just pointless.

[Jenny Dunning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even as a kid, I didn’t read favorite books over. Or watch favorite movies again. But I just finished rereading Jen Beagin’s debut novel Pretend I’m Dead a few weeks after reading it for the first time. I’d been recommending it to my book group—and couldn’t call up enough details to be convincing. So I started over. And two days later, well, it was just as satisfying a read as the first time through.
Driveway moments, or their reading analogue. That’s another measure of how good a book is. For me, those are the passages I can’t help myself from reading aloud to my husband, lying in bed before going to sleep. I didn’t actually count them—but there were more than any other book I can remember, and it’s a short novel, just under 200 pages.

Before you read any further, I should warn you that I won’t be able to help myself from quoting passages here either. This isn’t a spoiler alert so much as a heads-up that some of the language is, well, explicit. The c-word, etc. What do you expect from a novel that opens in a needle exchange clinic?

So the novel is gritty—lots of using and abusing of all sorts. Hilarious and hilariously clever, it tells the story of Mona belatedly (in her mid twenties) coming of age. Maybe that’s a time-worn plot—but Beagin tells it whacky and makes it new. A loner (as her name suggests), Mona cleans houses for a living, the activity providing her a kind of intimacy fix. She also takes liberties with (and sometimes drugs and talismans from, as well as photographs in) her clients’ homes. She’s on a journey, an odyssey, if you will (yes, the reference is made directly—but Beagin does literary allusions better than anyone, turns somersaults with them, actually). Mona’s road map is laid out in a goodbye letter from a boyfriend she refers to as Mr. Disgusting (he’s older, an addict in recovery, and has lost his teeth in an industrial accident). He tells her to get out of “Hole,” aka Lowell, Massachusetts, to move to New Mexico and start over: “Rent an adobe casita. Paint some pictures. Join a healthy cult of some kind. Get a guru. Surround yourself with [illegible]. I really want you to be —” Which is more or less what she does. Her gurus include an actual guru (of the British Buddhist sort) and his wife, a dying man, and a psychic who might actually be, um, psychic. Along the way, Mona has frequent conversations with a God she calls Bob (as in “thank Bob”), as well as imaginary conversations with her clients and others, often running in parallel to actual conversations.

Novels tend to be either/or: character-and-story-driven or language-driven. Pretend I’m Dead nails both. There’s plenty of narrative momentum—the questions and allegiances that keep a reader turning the pages. But it’s Beagin’s language that provides the wild ride. She puns and funs but somehow manages stunning descriptions at the same time. Describing the light in New Mexico, she writes, “The light had a quality of being everywhere at once, even in the shadows, and she felt suspended by it as if by an enormous hand. The Hand of Bob. When the sun was out, the hand held its sweaty palm wide open, and she often imagined she was traveling along the dust in one of its creases.” How about eyes “a shade of blue she associates with Ukrainians and hummingbirds”? Or her evocation of grief when Mona learns of Mr. Disgusting’s suicide: “She was struck with a sudden awareness of her nipples. They felt chafed, as if she’d been nursing a bearded man for the past thirty minutes. Then she realized it was loneliness.” Or how she characterizes Mona not telling her mother about her father’s actions: “Not telling her mother was essentially like tossing the secret into an abandoned well—without nourishment and in spite of its hoarse screaming, it would eventually die.” (But of course, it doesn’t, hence the novel—though Beagin is too good a writer to make whatever happened the centerpiece let alone explicitly tell it.) Beagin’s gift is to hit multiple registers in the same passage— lyric, comedic, emotionally hard-hitting.

But what’s even more remarkable about her prose is the way she piles up and weaves in and out of chains of associations, all them completely grounded in character and world. Here’s an example of what I’m referring to. One night, Mona hooks up with an architect from out of town—an architect who actually designs fire escapes and elevators (a tidbit we get in scene, when she meets him in a bar); later, she remembers the encounter: “He was handling her cunt deftly, as if he’d designed it himself ...”; recalling their conversation in the bar, she imagines him saying instead that he designs “vaginas— for office buildings.” Which sets her on a pell-mell metaphorical dash: "In fact, for many months now, her body had felt like an office building—neutered, utilitarian, without ornament—but he seemed to be remodeling it. His left hand cradled her fire escape, and the fingers of his right hand were inside her elevator shaft. His tongue—or was it his thumb?—kept grazing the elevator button, over and over and over." Talk about an original erotic metaphor.

The pace picks up at the end of the novel, moving toward some kind of epiphany in which Mona expunges her demons, or at least hammers them to pieces. Again, Beagin uses her associative pile-up technique. Mona has not actually read The Odyssey, but the British Buddhist gave her a copy and told her that she’s on the boat, heading home, and it’s time for her to “sit orderly upon the bench and smite the gray sea with her oars.”

But I have to interrupt myself. Earlier I described Beagin’s literary allusions as the best, and I realize now I never got around to expanding on that. No two allusions are brought in the same way—and all are treated with irreverence. Though a book lover, Mona hasn’t had much in the way of formal education. The literature she knows, however, she knows well. So when the psychic demands she say whatever comes into her head when she looks at a photo, she quotes part of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” to hilarious effect. Then there’s the problem of her books with white spines. She’s stashed them in the closet because they don’t fit in with the colored spines. Finally, she gives them their own shelf—and arranges them so they form sentences: “Man walks into a room with the pharmacist’s mate as I lay dying of accidental blindness and assorted fire events, of white noise and housekeeping and ...” You get the idea. Now back to The Odyssey.
At the end of the novel, Mona tells her new friend Jesus about being on that boat, smiting the gray sea with her oars, yada yada. Jesus jumps from smiting the oars to smiting the doll she’s taken from the psychic’s house, a doll that stands in for the childhood dolls who terrified her (she was convinced they had cameras behind their eyes, and witnessed the secret she keeps from her mother). And so she smites that doll, or more precisely, pulverizes ... her porcelain head, hands, feet.

I haven’t said anything about the title of this book. It’s intriguing, right? But I’ve told you enough already. You’ll just have to read it for yourself.

[Garry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, funny and quirky first novel by Jen Beagin about a tough, lonely young woman named Mona making her way as a house cleaner and her experiences with romance and the people she meets in her profession. I read her second, sequel novel, Vacuum in the Dark, first and it made me want to read this one. They are a great companion set as the main character Mona continues her personal journey of trying to find a good life while house cleaning homes for others and reflecting back on her troubled youth. Beagin has a great gift with words and original sentences and is especially good with story telling and characterizations. 

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky and accomplished first novel... more of a 4.5, but not quite a 5 star. Lead character Mona is a one-of-a-kind heroine, and her exploits make for breezy and fun reading.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - strange, quirky, funny, off-beat, dark

[berjean ✿ · Rating 4 out of 5]

took off one star cause she hates cats (i know)

[ella 🥀 · Rating 2 out of 5]

i probably should've DNFed this but i carried on reading because it was so short (wasn't worth it though lol). this is a typical unhinged white woman book, but it felt narrow-minded and a little meaningless.
perhaps its strongest parts about the MC's childhood and its effects weren't explored enough, with graphic scenes instead of commentary. there are quite a lot of racist and bigoted comments from the MC that weren't challenged at all. i've heard similar things about the author's other works so i won't be reading from her again.

[Nicole Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jen Beagin has absolutely mastered the art of balancing darkness and tragedy with humour. Mona is an hilarious main character and has such bizarre characteristics, I really warmed to her.

The story follows her life as a cleaner and the relationships that ensue from this. Her whirlwind romance with a drug addict. Her cult-like friendship with her married neighbours, and more.

I have already ordered the sequel and can’t wait to spend more time in Mona’s world.

[Gianna Mosser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: NUP book! This author is daring and brutally honest. Though her narrative became painfully personal and self-deprecating, I thought the strength of the ending gave the reader some hope that Mona might yet come out the other side.