By Amelie Patel, Deputy Comment Editor
On Valentine’s Day weekend, I picked up Sean Gilbert’s debut novel, I’ll Be the Monster. Its synopsis was enough to pull me in – ‘a homicidal couple embarks on a luxury holiday to save their marriage’. It combines a few genres - crime, thriller, mystery, and romance all in one. Pared with a teasing narrative style, which subverts audience expectations, I was engaged wholeheartedly from start to finish.
The first word of the novel is ‘you’. It is suitable one, affirming the centre of the novel’s gravity: the husband’s fixation on his wife Elle. His reverence for her is fascinating, as it provokes a singularly toxic and twisted relationship dynamic. The title, I’ll Be the Monster suggests how the couple functions on a precedent; of her illusional freedom, and his ‘constraints’ on her, boundaries which are tested when their holiday is crashed by an old companion named Benny. Benny’s presence is suitably jarring, reminding one of an unwanted third wheel that refuses to respond to unsubtle hints. Though, as readers we come to realise he is more threatening than he looks, confirming the unreliability of our narrator.
Throughout the novel, the narrator surveys and decodes the world in relation to his wife, ceaselessly attempting to write the narrative of the story. However, we experience exciting moments of free fall when Elle resists his signification, catching us completely off guard and reminding us of the superfluity of human behaviour. Gilbert’s craft is unmistakable as he manages to evoke the reader's empathy for the husband in these moments, since we have become attached to his fallible world view.
‘It’s also fun to read as a student, as I can recognise certain tropes in students at Bristol; the aristocratic pandering of Raphe, Benny’s self-effacement of his private school education, the backpackers on a ‘transformational’ volunteering experience, to name a few..’
The story builds for so long that perhaps some would argue that its ‘climax’ is unfulfilling. I’d beg to differ. The scene in which Elle and her husband taunt Benny is delicious. The couple who have been professed as ‘out of sorts’ henceforth find a thrilling tandem through dialogue which has only been glimpsed before, and the pace and delivery of their combined attacks on Benny are immensely satisfying. In the moment I found myself thinking of the book cover, which displays a red, flashing, octopus tentacle skewered onto a fork. The book grabs you in the same way and reminds you of the bodily urges which compel action, the flesh underneath.
In a few ways the novel actually reminded me of Flesh by David Szalay, winner of the Booker Prize 2025. Aside from its similar focus on the body, I could point to its use of biting dialogue, the jumping timeline, and embedded sense of the short story. In other ways it differed – it is more consciously intellectual, rooted in the milieu of Cambridge even as the narrative dips between the English town and Turkey, where the receptionist Demer at a rural, derelict hostel reads The Faerie Queen. It also builds and maintains a great sense of interior character, and experiments with temporality in a way I really enjoyed, moving between present, past, and even imagined future.
Katy Bright
This book is a standout of my year so far, and I recommend it to revive an inevitable reading drought as the term drags on. It’s also fun to read as a student, as I can recognise certain tropes in students at Bristol; the aristocratic pandering of Raphe, Benny’s self-effacement of his private school education, the backpackers on a ‘transformational’ volunteering experience, to name a few. Student life is uniquely transient, and the identities that we craft here are one of many we will try on and later sheath off - a slightly disarming thought as I enter my last term of university. Though, as long as I don’t acquire an unprecedented penchant for homicide, I think I’ll be fine.
Featured image: Epigram / Amelie Patel
Will you read I'll Be the Monster?
