The Monosexual
by Dean Moonti
Publisher : Madville Publishing LLC (July 16, 2024)
ISBN-10 : 1956440895
ISBN-13 : 978-1956440898
Authorlink Interview by Ellen Birkett Morris
Author Dean Monti’s latest novel, The Monosexual, is a comic romp about relationship grief and the nature of love. The Monosexual tells the story of Vincent Cappellini, an obsessed ultra-monogamist who struggles when his relationship with the love of his life abruptly ends. Off in search of his true love, Cappellini is tested by a sunburn, bad sushi, a Sinatra karaoke contest, the road rage fury of a woman scorned and a new woman that leads him to question long held values. Monti shares his journey developing the novel:
AUTHORLINK: Tell me about your apprenticeship as a creative writer. Did you have a mentor who offered advice that you can share with us?
MONTI: Author Carol Anshaw was one of the most important people I met. She’s an amazing writer who never fails to create interesting, thought-provoking, and deeply moving novels. She was teaching creative writing and I took her class. She made some suggestions about getting on eye level with the protagonist that helped me get inside Malcolm’s head in THE SWEEP OF THE SECOND HAND, my first published novel.
I took a two-day intensive workshop in Chicago with the infamous curmudgeon Robert McKee. His concepts about creating conflict were invaluable and aligned with what I was already doing, so it helped me confirm I was on the right track.
Author Dana Spiotta read an early draft of THE MONOSEXUAL during my MFA. Dana Spiotta and author Jonathan Dee gave great, positive feedback on my draft. Primarily it was moments in the story that stopped them (raised questions) as they read, which I think is the best kind of feedback. Sometimes that’s all you need. That and the encouragement to keep going. The best teachers have been the ones who made me feel I was doing something of value.
AUTHORLINK: What writers or pieces of writing would you cite as influences on the creation of The Monosexual?
MONTI: No particular piece of writing directly on this particular work. But I would mention the late Paul Auster – not because I write like him or would ever try to write like him, but he opened up possibilities for me. A more expansive idea of what fiction could be. He introduces unexpected elements of the absurd that are rooted in reality. Will Self is another “absurdist” author who I could never hope to write like – his writing is on a whole other level – but he’s very inspiring as a writer. Will Self is wary of instructional how-to-write-a-novel books because he says reading a book about how Stephen King writes will help you write a book that sounds like Stephen King, rather than a book that sounds like you. And I think King’s writing tips are excellent, and affirming, but I understand what Will Self is saying. Ultimately, the only thing that will produce original works is originality.
AUTHORLINK: James Dickey said the idea for Deliverance came to him as a vision of a man standing alone on top of a mountain. His job was to get the man off the mountain. Where did the idea for The Monosexual come from?
MONTI: If the mountain is a metaphor, then my mountain (or maybe it’s a molehill) in THE MONOSEXUAL is Vincent’s myopic view of love. I’ve always enjoyed writing about relationships and started raising questions about the concept of a soulmate. Is a soulmate someone you can choose? Some believe fate is a factor rather than choice. Is love something that is mutually agreed upon at the exact same time, or what? If you are convinced there are soulmates, and a fortune teller told you your soulmate was in Kalamazoo, would you go there and start looking? What happens when one gets away? What happens when your soulmate doesn’t share the same opinion you do about soulmates? I’m asking all those questions in THE MONOSEXUAL. The idea of a soulmate is an attractive, romantic concept, one that I like, in fact. It’s a concept that’s often expressed beautifully in song, film, and art, but in the real world that extends beyond the world of a romantic comedy, it can have some unexpected outcomes. And there’s an obsessive spiraling that sometimes happens in matters of the heart that I thought was worth exploring. So I was juxtaposing the ideas of aspirational, perfect love versus the often complex reality of love. It may sound like a cynical view, but with THE MONOSEXUAL, I offer some hope for the obsessive, hopeless romantics. I hope so, anyway.
AUTHORLINK: The novel relies on extended metaphor and word play. How hard was it to keep that up throughout? How did you decide what was working and what was not?
MONTI: I think a lot of that is intuitive and knowing when to trust it. I recently saw a clip with Martin Short talking about creating humor and about how if you try to be funny, it won’t be funny, but if you’re “sincere within the bizarreness of the character” it can work. That’s how I look at it. It’s really just role playing within the absurd situation. It’s misunderstanding and imbalance taken to a comedic level, like what Larry David did so well with Curb Your Enthusiasm and Woody Allen and Albert Brooks did in their films. Just as, I’m sure, some people who know me see some of me in the protagonist in THE MONOSEXUAL and THE SWEEP OF THE SECOND HAND, but it’s not me; it’s exaggerated through a unique comic lens.
AUTHORLINK: What was your greatest challenge in developing The Monosexual?
MONTI: The basic story has been with me for years. I realized in recent years that perhaps this novel was more expansive than was necessary. The current version came about when I took away some elements that didn’t add much to the main story. For instance, there was a bit more about Melissa’s friend Katherine and that whole story. But we are so close to Vincent’s perspective in the novel, it only matters that we know as much about Katherine as Vincent would know. And leaving some things out created some interesting questions for Vincent and the reader. That entire section, near the latter part of the book – that was the hardest to write.
AUTHORLINK: This is your second novel. How has the process changed for you? What do you know now you didn’t know then?
MONTI: This is my second novel or my third or my sixth. It depends on how you look at it. I have two published novels, two other novels that were very nearly published in the past decade, and two more besides – and I work on all of them. I’d like to believe that with each draft, the work gets a little better. There’s also the element of experience. As I age, I’m sure I accrue more and more information and skills that can be applied to my manuscripts. I know more about my characters with each draft. If THE MONOSEXUAL had been accepted the first time I queried it, it would be a very different novel. Rejection is frustrating, no doubt, but with each rejection I’m sure I’ve been forced to go back in and do something that made the work a little better. And ultimately, that’s the goal.
Analyzing process is for me, in some ways, sort of like stopping in the middle of an improv acting class and saying: Wait, why did you say that? Well, Dr. Freud, I just don’t know.
I’ll return to Paul Auster on this one. He said: “Too much of what I do is simply unconscious; I don’t know where the ideas come from. I don’t know how to explain the work I do. I can’t defend it. I can’t do anything but do it. Beyond that, I’m as ignorant as anybody.” That’s how I feel.
So, as much as I may attempt to find an intentionality in what I do, I think my only intention is to put myself in front of a keyboard and see what happens. It puts you on the high wire, for sure, but that’s where I want to be. Typing and afraid. That would be a really good reality show. Typing and Afraid.
AUTHORLINK: I’m wondering what advice you offer to apprentice writers about either craft, or staying encouraged in the face of rejection, or both.
MONTI: About rejection — I queried for more than 10 years on THE SWEEP OF THE SECOND HAND and an early rejection came from Penguin. Fast forward a decade and Penguin was the publisher who outbid all other publishers to snatch up the paperback rights. It demonstrates that publishing is ever-changing and so are the players. You have to keep your perspective and realize that getting a “no” may not really mean that much in the big scheme of things. I’ve had hundreds of rejections over the years. It may mean you just need to push on, be patient, be persistent. My life has been changed more than once by a single slush pile reader who recommended my book to a publisher. For me, it’s a moment worth waiting for. So, it really is true that it’s a combination of persistence, talent, and luck. You can’t do anything about luck, so you should concentrate primarily on being a better writer.
AUTHORLINK: Discuss what you are working on now.
MONTI: Writing a screenplay was an area I hadn’t explored yet. So I’m working on a screenplay while concurrently editing and polishing the novel I wrote that it’s based on. It’s a fictional mash up of several odd-but-true events that all occurred in 1916. I also have a very dark serio-comic novel about bullying that’s gotten some good feedback. I want to go back to that one but it’s difficult terrain. I go back to all my unpublished works to try to improve those and see what fresh ideas come to me and then I query and see what happens. I don’t plan ahead as well as I could. I write and create when I get the urge and the chance. But I get the urge a lot. I also get the urge to play guitar, so who knows what’s next?
Dean Monti is the author of THE SWEEP OF THE SECOND HAND, first published by Academy Chicago Publishers and reprinted in paperback by Penguin. His latest novel is THE MONOSEXUAL He is also the author of several one-act plays and has had his works premiered in Chicago. He taught creative writing and novel writing classes at Columbia College in Chicago and College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte.
