Monarch

by Candice Wuehle

The cryptic worlds of Hanna and Stranger Things mingle with the dark humor of Dare Me in this debut novel about a teen beauty queen who discovers she's been a sleeper agent in a deep state government program, and whose love for a fellow pageant girl sparks an underworld journey to the truth of her being.

After waking up with a strange taste in her mouth and mysterious bruises, former child beauty queen Jessica Clink unwittingly begins an investigation into a nefarious deep state underworld. Equipped with the eccentric education of her father, Dr. Clink (a professor of Boredom Studies and the founder of an elite study group on idleness, affect, and crime known as “The Devil’s Workshop”), Jessica uncovers a disquieting connection between her former life as a pageant queen and an offshoot of Project MKUltra known as MONARCH.

As Jessica moves closer to the truth, she begins to suspect the involvement of everyone around her, including her own mother, Grethe (a beauty queen turned spokesperson for a Norwegian cryochamber device built to halt the aging process for suburban housewives). With the help of Christine (a black-lipsticked riot grrrl babysitter and confidante), Jessica sets out to take down Project MONARCH and the operatives who programmed her. More importantly, she must discover if her first love, fellow teen queen Veronica Marshall, was genuine or yet another deep state plant.

Iconic true crime stories of the ’90s (Lorena Bobbitt, Nicole Brown Simpson, and JonBenét Ramsey) merge with Jessica’s own past, triggering traumatic revelations and the radical potential of feminist vengeance. Drawing on theories of human consciousness, folklore, and a perennial cultural fixation with dead girls, MONARCH questions the shadow sides of self-concept: Who are you if you don't know yourself?

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Queer, Science Fiction, Mystery Thriller, LGBT

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 22, 2022

About the author

Candice Wuehle is the author of the novel MONARCH (Soft Skull, forthcoming) as well as three collections of poetry, including FIDELITORIA: fixed or fluxed (11:11, 2021), BOUND (Inside the Castle Press, 2018) and Death Industrial Complex (Action Books, 2020), which is currently longlisted for The Believer Magazine Book Award. She is also a co-author of Collected Voices in the Expanded Field (11:11, 2020). Her chapbooks include VIBE CHECK (Garden-door Press, 2018), EARTH* AIR* FIRE* WATER *ÆTHER (Grey Books Press, 2015) and cursewords: a guide in 19 steps for aspiring transmographs (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Her work can be found in The Iowa Review, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Black Warrior Review, Tarpaulin Sky, The Volta, The Colorado Review, SPORK, and The New Orleans Review.
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Candice holds an MA in literature from the University of Minnesota as well as an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She earned a doctorate in Creative Writing at The University of Kansas, where she was the recipient of a Chancellor's Fellowship. Her studies focus on the relationship between trauma, memory, and the occult. She is represented by Kiele Raymond at Thompson Literary Agency.
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Originally from Iowa City, Iowa, Candice lives in Lawrence, Kansas with her husband Andrew and their rabbit, William the Bunny.

Reviews

[CJ Alberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

What!!!!! I guess being a woman is like being in a deep state trance lol. Sticky!!!!! I have never read a book like this ever

[Alanna Why · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have read in MONTHS! I think I only understood about 70% of it, but Wuehle's psychological examination of the nature of the self and identity really struck me, even when my little pea brain didn't fully get it. I also absolutely adored the 90s camp femme energy and subtle pop culture references. This book is extremely weird, niche and wordy, so it won't be for everyone, but it certainly was for ME! I immediately want to read this again.

[маја · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*
this was such a bizarre experience because it was equally pretentious as it was cartoonish-ly naive (villians exposing the entirety of what happened so you aren't left to speculate even if you were confused at first ) and i don't think i've had this much fun reading a book in such a long time. i would pitch it as bunny by mona awad meets tacky spy movies on LSD. it's absolutely UNHINGED. hopefully that somehow manages to make people pick this up because my god was this the highlight of my reading year and i 100% need this author to publish another book. in short i think this is what kids these days call camp idk

[Katie T · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read 5 stars, second read 4 stars but still loved it.
Reminded me of the Molly Southbourne novels.

[oli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instant fave. This book has everything for me - sci fi feminism, creepy beauty pageants, catholicism, queerness and gender shit, CIA shit, darkroom photography, girlhood, ouija boards. Wild!

[Dustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do yourself a favor, don't read the synopsis, just read the book for some surprises. This book clearly takes pleasure in its own cleverness and is successful in doing so. Wuehle channels the feel of my favorite parts of early Chuck Palahniuk, if CP was actually able to write sometimes sympathetic characters and something more than thinly veiled allegory, and turn the narrative on its head again and again. Well done.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half was so rich with content it felt like I should be taking notes. Well-written and packed with so many ideas about the self, spirituality, folklore, individuality, and psychology. It's a lot less straightforward than the jacket suggests, but I'm glad for that. It posited itself as kind of a silly read, but what I got was really intellectual.

[Andrew Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Atmospheric, fun, smart, richly textured thriller. Recalls Pynchon in its layers & scope, interweaving elements of spy films, 90s pop culture, Norwegian folklore, and true crime. Creeps in, keeps you on your toes, a good read indeed.

[Quin · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is one for the girlies. half pretentious and half psychotic

[Vincent Perrone · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel that fully intuits the dark rituals of America. Wuehle has reinvented the bildungsroman, deconstructed the spy novel, and rendered a striking investigation of agency and destiny.

From Jessica Clink's first introduction, the reader is invited to inhabit a consciousness forming and erasing itself simultaneously. From her incandescent romance to her esoteric upbringing, everything about Jessica's childhood is singular and crafted with a deftness and persuasiveness to lock the reader in place, and carry them across the expanse of Jessica's life.

In novel preoccupied with beauty pageants, clandestine deep state operations, Norwegian folklore, and the radioactive culture surrounding the end of the last century, there's no lack for surprises. That said, perhaps the honest astonishment of the novel is one of illusive simplicity. This is the story of a young women coming to inhabit her mind and her body, uncertain of the revelations to follow.

[mina]

i really liked the musings on identity/self but got very lost in the sci-fi/action bits

[lyz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars (additional .5 bc of the first portion of the book)

i really wish i'd liked this more than i actually did. the first half was really good, but the sci-fi portion of it felt a bit bland and disconnected from the first part. it felt disjointed which was probably the intention given what happens, but i didn't really enjoy it. i guess i'm just not a sci-fi girlie huh. nonetheless, the writing was great. i loved all the ruminations on identity and word etymology. it was, how the kids say, 1/3 slay.

[Mack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this novel! It’s dark and funny and on the nose but still very clever. It’s always refreshing to read a narrative about the absurdity and the violence of patriarchy and not want to roll my eyes the entire time. I feel like Candice understands The Point, like she Gets It, she gets what’s so hard about staring into the deep dark void of systemic violence against women, not in a #metoo way.

There are parts of this that are hard to read because they invoke so much about dissociation as coping, what we all felt watching the Epstein information unspool, generational trauma, infantilisation of grown women as well as mistreatment and sexualisation of young girls, and more. The shit is bleak! But the story is compelling! She did great imo.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

tumblr post of all time (complimentary)

really falls apart in the back half when things start happening but in the fun debut way where i want to read 6 more books from this author

[Addie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recommended by NPR, yet I can only wonder if NPR was so smitten by the author's repeated use of the word “palimpsest” that they just overlooked most of this book.

Told by an empty genius—an effortless and self-described “gorgeous” girl, a character whose purpose is so entirely boring and Mary Sue-ish that she describes her own efforts and deceptions as “perfect”—getting into the character is nothing short of a waste of time. She is uninteresting. She is flat. She is vain. And you spend, like, half the book learning there is nothing to care about here. The premise is essentially Black Widow or one of those other indistinguishable stories about ballerinas becoming spies, only, this time, it’s about a teen beauty pageant queen. Too much energy was divested early in this book, pre-plot, introducing us to this stunningly dull creature. The worldbuilding at the end might be interesting, had so much of my time not already been wasted learning to hate our narrator. A more generous critique might say there was a problem with the book's pacing.

This is also the second NPR-rec'd book I’ve read recently that values aesthetic depression: the kind that involves curling up in unusual but cute places and still being “high functioning,” while simultaneously someone thinks you’re “dangerously depressed.” Depression is referenced many times in this book as a pivotal transformation point, but the narrator barely gets into her experience, leaving it shallow and a little too tell, don't show.

I fail to understand why people think this book is profound. Why? Because it references Norwegian folklore? Because it's, what? Queer? (Really, barely.) About beauty? Using beauty pageants as a plot trope is extraordinarily literal; it gives an author a free opportunity to describe normalised abuse and pressures put on women to behave and look a certain way. Y’all, this ain’t a metaphor. Are people so blinded by the author’s obsession with inflated language and occasionally quoting philosophy deep-cuts? Listen, we could all go on Wikipedia and copy and paste from Nietzsche or something. Finding the right quote might be a skill, but let’s not get carried away and call it art.

Overrated, tedious, featuring bafflingly unlikeable people who have somehow evaded critical readers by bloating their scripts with SAT words.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is so much going on in this book that I am not going to even attempt a summary. I think the official description recaps it well. It is an unusual blend of science fiction, fantasy, detective, and espionage. It is set in the US in the 1990s. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand it is extremely creative and beautifully written. On the other hand, the structure is disjointed, it contains a bizarre mix of topics, and I am left wondering the point of it all. I am certain this book will reach an audience of raving fans, but it was a little too “out there” for me, though definitely engaging.

3.5

[isabell · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was probably the most bizarre experience i had while reading a book. i don’t think i’ve ever been this confused for so long while still having so much fun. this is a book i definitely won’t forget!
i’ll probably have to reread it again at some point because it was simply that much fun!

[aliyyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

This was batshit crazy but in the best way. I love insane books.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book but permit me to declare an interest: Candice Wuehle was not only a student of mine at the University of Iowa, but fatefully the class she took was Classic English Ghost Stories. We started with J. Sheridan Le Fanu and ended with Algernon Blackwood, visiting along the way M. R. James, Bram Stoker, and Edith Wharton (pushing the nationality envelope a trifle). Candice was always well prepared to contribute to the class, not only in her reading and comments, but especially by being suitably attired for clubbing afterwards at the Goth Club. Actually the main classical source for Monarch is Frankenstein, along with overtones of DeLillo, Pynchon (particularly Crying of Lot 49). As Candice is also a University of Iowa writers' workshop graduate (along with University of Kansas), she carries on as well the proud tradition of novels set in Iowa City by writers such as Elizabeth Hardwick and John Irving. She doesn't name the town or the university, but Mayflower dormitory and University Photography are real places. The father of the principal character is a Professor of Boredom Studies (hello Don DeLillo), his daughter Jessica Clink competed in pageants as a child (like JonBenet Ramsey), retired at 13 and apparently became a high-school student, and then enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Iowa. In fact, she was a MONARCH, a programmed operative for a super hush-hush agency with centers at a university somewhere in the southwestern desert and another in the mountains of Norway. When she starts discovering her secret identity (whilst developing photographs at University Photography), Jessica goes rogue, precipitating her mother's termination with extreme prejudice. (Proof of which requires decapitation.) After a series of adventures in America and Europe (along with her former college roommate Jian--alias Jane), Jessica forces a showdown in the mountains of Norway with her controller, Chancellor Lethe. (Like Pynchon, Wuehle gives her characters names simultaneously satirical while almost believable.) Jessica combines angst-ridden teen ingenue with secret agent—one of her roles was seducing foreign dictators while under the illusion of somnambulism. I’d definitely love to read a sequel, though not sure if Jessica has exceeded her sell-by date. But whatever Candice Wuehle writes next, I want to read.

[Autumn Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled across Candice on Twitter and decided to check out her latest book - Monarch, from Soft Skull. It's clear that she's an exceptionally talented writer, with a deft and cutting style. (It's no surprise that she graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop.)

However, this book really feels like two books - the first half is a dreamy exploration of a girl growing up as a beauty pageant queen. The second is a more straightforward thriller, which discards a lot of the style of the first. I would've liked to see the two parts feel more cohesive, as the revelations did not always feel satisfying.

Despite that I would recommend this book to others. Candice has such a unique voice and I'm excited to read whatever she comes out with next.

[Caroline Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t really know how to begin to describe what I just read. Come for the ostensible plot (a burnt-out former pageant queen slowly realizes that her unusual childhood was actually training her to be a deep state sleeper agent), stay for everything else sprinkled throughout (Latin etymology, Norwegian folklore, 90’s true crime references, the psychology of memory, existential crises).

One of those books where I honestly don’t think I was smart enough to understand it all, but I enjoyed the ride. Hidden gem alert!

[Grace Gimbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting and unique read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a refreshing writing style and storyline.

[Sentimental Surrealist · Rating 4 out of 5]

A testament, above all, to the power of an unpredictable plot. The first part is an artfully deployed slow burn, trickling out mystery and dysfunctional relationships (even Tolstoy couldn’t have predicted a family so uniquely unhappy) and rewarding your patience with explosions of action. Child beauty pageants, quests for immortality, Boredom Studies, and all kinds of well-tuned observations about social groups abound. By contrast, the second half comes at you furiously, a bizarro spy thriller with an existential bent, the kind of thing that makes you think it’s Zoolander as written by Don DeLillo. But just when Wuehle’s got you safe in that mode, and even enjoying it, the last few pages cut the line out, and you’re forced to confront once again that you’re in the presence of a storyteller who has mastered the art of surprise. A great intersection of voice (numb), character (a former child beauty pageant star with amnesia and a vague sense of self-identity), themes (keeping those secret), and, of course, good old plot. And for all that heavy craft, and for all the commentary on our society it offers, Monarch understands the important thing and keeps it first: you’ll want to know what happens next. But let me assure you that you’ve never read a page-turner like this before. A great beach read, if you want your beach trips full of dread and bleak humor.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

i really thought i would love this based on the premise but i think the wordy writing style made what was happening in the plot a bit confusing

[Tarah Fedenia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intensely creative. Dystopian 90s child beauty pageants. If you dont know what in the world is happening in the beginning, just keep reading.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really captures the dark hidden truths about bureaucratic power, the way the world uses young girls, and how it must feel to be trapped between those two truths. Monarch takes you for a ride through the spiral of time as you witness Jessica in the same third person perspective she witnesses herself in, plus some of her sprawling, insightful, academic, insane, and profane commentary that I can only expect from feminist authors. The plot takes inspiration from childhood beauty parents, MK Ultra, philosophy, poetry, art, and Norwegian fairy tales to create a true prosaic masterpiece. Bonus points from me for lesbianism and Midwestern gothic elements!

[Emma Davey · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know when you read a book description and you feel pretty confident that it's your kind of book, and then you read it, and it totally is? So strange and bitchy. It's the demonic lovechild of "Memento," "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" and at least half of the episodes of "You're Wrong About." It's definitely a bananas premise, but it largely works, save for a couple of hiccups in logic. Couldn't put it down.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

what if beauty pageant girls were sleeper agents ? THIS WAS SO GOOD OMG!!! very dark and also SAPPHIC!!!!!

[Genay · Rating 4 out of 5]

lesbians save lives - and I've always said that.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really has it all: beauty pageants, catholicism, teen fight clubs, deep state mk ultra style hypnosis, 90s riot grrrl babysitters, christina aguilera, and lesbians. I love weird fic and had a lot of fun reading this. There were lots of weird/cool/compelling elements, but they didn't really add up to a whole that was impactful for me.