Monster by Jowita Bydlowska is the sensuous version of the dissolution of a marriage overlapping with the commencement of another relationship. A novel told by a woman who has been taught to suppress her own life experiences and the range of emotions that they have resulted in, Monster speaks to the modern concept of female rage while still nursing conversation about how we, society, force women’s voices to be quiet in the face of their own mistreatment and abuse.

We meet Yoveeta on the eve of her book launch, her memoir detailing her experience with overcoming an eating disorder. She is present in her everyday family life with her young daughter and her older husband, a man who used to be her professor. It is at the event where she welcomes the unexpected attention of a new suitor to distract her from the torment of knowing that history does repeat itself and her relationship is falling apart.

“I have to look up, and neither of us smiles, we know, we already know, and the air feels different, like there’s more of something, extra gravity, objects with greater charge create stronger electric fields. I raise the glass and take a little sip, my eyes on you the whole time.”

Bydlowska lights the fire early and I found the description of our protagonist’s first encounter with her lover so enticing. She kept the embers burning throughout all 250 pages — my heart raced when Yoveeta’s did, my intrigue soared alongside. Monster is a work of passion; that is very clear from the outset. Bydlowska writes about sex in a way that I have rarely experienced. Her writing is provocative in both an intellectual and a sexual sense while still remaining more literary than smut. Sex is highly prevalent — it first appears barely one page into the novel — but it is with more purpose than to simply shock and more meaning than mere amusement.

That isn’t to say that Monster is purely focused on sexuality. It explores a modern woman’s experience of a world where being sexualized is mandatory and very much out of her own hands. The tug-of-war between the outward expectations placed on her and the pulls she feels internally comes across to the reader as artfully as it does tragically and I think it’s something that many women can relate to.

Alternating between third person for the story of her home life and second person for her devotion to her suitor, Bydlowska is masterful in moving between tenses and still aligning the story perfectly, coming together and moving apart naturally.

Even in her afterword and acknowledgements, Jowita Bydlowska gives her readers something to think about. She writes, “I called Monster “autofiction” and gave the protagonist my own name to poke fun at the fact that people see women’s writing as autobiographical. This is something that I’ve heard all of my female friends complain about.” 

She also assured readers, “I believe that real life does inform fiction but more often than not fiction is not real life, nor a thinly veiled account of it.”

On the cover of the book, Heather O’Neill refers to each of Bydlowska’s books as “an uneasy journey into the realms of internalized misogyny” and I think the uneasiness inspired by her writing is one of Bydlowska’s greatest gifts.

Jowita Bydlowska reads at Compassion and Happiness: A Conversation with Writers of Fiction on Oct. 19 at the Whistler Writers Festival. Tickets are available. 

Review is by Carly-Ann Rigby. Catch her talking about books on Instagram: @carlyisreading.