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.
Author Info
Jervey Tervalon is the author of five books, including the bestselling Dead Above Ground and Understand This, for which he won the New Voices Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club. He edited the anthology The Cocaine Chronicles. He was a Remsen Bird writer in residence at Occidental College and a Disney screenwriting fellow. He is the director of the Literature for Life project, an online literary magazine and salon, and the literary director of LitFest Pasadena. Born in New Orleans, he now lives in California and teaches at the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara.
Reviews
“Jervey Tervalon has a sick and original imagination—and I mean that in a good way.” — Tayari Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta
“Jervey Tervalon’s fast-moving tale is sure to strike a tantalizing chord for anyone who could not stop following the excesses of one certain bizarre postracial soft-voiced entertainer with a penchent for childhood amusements.” — Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander
“Tervalon’s latest is masterful. He takes the kind of chances every writer dreams of. Monster’s Chef is delicious reading.” — Grace Octavia, Essence bestselling author of Should Have Known Better
“Jervey Tervalon is a fantastic, brilliant and fearless writer, with a voice I would follow anywhere. . . . I straight-up loved this book.” — Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight
“Tervalon’s impressive and long-awaited new novel draws you in to a modern-day labyrinth of fame, wealth, power, and, gradually, a secret core of iniquity. . . . It’s a timely vision and a compulsively readable parable, at once both fantastic and true.” — Frederick Reiken, author of Day for Night
“Tervalon creates a tangy tale of suspense spiked with fantasy and wrapped around a peppery investigation into the twisted complexities of race, sex, power, and obsession. . . . Recipes are included in Tervalon’s clever, hair-raising gothic thriller, a novel readers will devour.” — Booklist
