Anyone who knows Adrienne Brodeur knows that she is obsessed with family secrets.
“I come from a family who kept a lot of secrets.” said Brodeur, who will make an appearance on July 24 in downtown Greenville at M.Judson Booksellers. “Both my parents had half siblings they never knew about, so I’ve traveled in that orbit.”
It comes as no surprise, then, that family secrets are at the heart of Brodeur’s debut novel “Little Monsters.”
Like her 2019 bestselling memoir, “Wild Game,” about a mother who embroils her daughter in an epic love affair with her husband’s best friend, the novel is set in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, an area Brodeur knows intimately. It’s the spring of 2016, and by all appearances, everything is looking grand for the Gardner family.
The patriarch, Adam, is a renowned marine biologist who’s about to turn 70 and is on the brink of a scientific breakthrough about humpback whales. His son Ken has just sealed a real estate deal that has catapulted him into a new stratosphere of wealth, enabling him to run for Congress. Adam’s daughter Abby is a painter who’s just found her voice as an artist and is about to be discovered in a big way.
Of course, things aren’t as good or easy as they seem.
“Just below the surface, the ground is shifting and everyone is keeping secrets,” said Brodeur, speaking by phone from her Cape Cod home.
Adam has secretly stopped taking his bipolar medication in the hopes that he’ll be able to crack the code on whale language once his mind is freed from the pills’ mind-numbing effects. Both Abby and Ken are harboring secrets of their own, and there’s a new person on the periphery of the family — a stranger who’s discovered a secret that threatens to upend the entire Gardner family narrative.
“What I loved about writing (this book) was taking a look at the inner lives of this very complicated family and shining a spotlight on just a real family so that we can see the deeper truth inside and do it compassionately,” Brodeur said.
Join Brodeur in conversation with author Patti Callahan Henry for a “Books Over Drinks” event at 7:30 p.m. July 24 at M.Judson Booksellers in downtown Greenville. Tickets are $35 and include admission, a copy of the book and a cocktail. Visit mjudsonbooks.com/our-events for more information.
