A Review of Lori D’Angelo’s The Monsters are Here by Nicole Yurcaba


In her debut short story collection, The Monsters are Here, fiction writer Lori D’Angelo establishes herself as a writer daring to venture into new spectacles of character innovation, dark humor, and philosophical horror. Subtle feminist rage, blunt societal commentary, and forthright individualism unapologetically unfold in D’Angelo’s stories. Thus, The Monsters are Here is anything but another cliché horror short story collection: its stories embrace individuals’ fallibilities and fallacies and hold them beneath the metaphorical microscope so that readers can see that their own blemishes and flaws might actually be the self-attributes that they should most celebrate.

The eponymous short story opens the collection. It is one of the many stories in her book that confirms that D’Angelo’s writing bears a strong, individualistic voice which cries from the page and reaches the parts of the human soul that most would rather deny or not explore. An unnamed narrator admits that they and a small group “called the man Frankenstein after the novel, like that was normal. Like it was okay to mock the disabled and deformed.” The narrator confesses that they and others “laughed at him trying to slurp down his unlimited soup and shovel in breadsticks with his shaky ice cream scooper-like hands.” The group then “posted a video about it on TikTok” which received “52,000 likes.” The narrator, like the others in her group, bear a strong sense of entitlement. Their actions and attitudes imply that they believe their actions have no consequences, and regardless of whether or not they did, those consequences would not apply to them. In a few quick sweeps, D’Angelo quickly dissects entitlement, privilege, ableism, and social media’s pervasive entertainment factor. Simultaneously, the story also challenges individuals to rethink how they treat others, particularly in a society where violence and bullying are perpetuated by powerful social and political figures.

Other stories like “Searching for the Dead” offer a philosophical take on what an individual does with their relationships in life. More importantly, the story offers a unique take on reconciling the emotional residue from a less-than-thrilling relationship after one’s partner dies. The narrator, Mallory, reflects on her relationship with Jonah, her partner whom she last saw alive on October 15th. However, “Searching for the Dead” bears a surprise twist: it is actually Mallory who is dead. Mallory struggles to accept her death—and the fact that Jonah has moved on and found a new girlfriend. What magnifies the story is not only D’Angelo’s clever plot twist, but also the story’s distinctive tone. D’Angelo possesses an adeptness for structuring a character’s internal monologues in a tugging emotional way. The best example of this is Mallory’s monologue towards the story’s end:

I thought about it. I pictured Jonah and I walking, holding hands, kissing each
  other in the rain like in a Nicholas Sparks movie. Jonah and I meeting each
  other for coffee in the middle of the day because we could. Jonah and I
  hiking a particularly difficult but satisfying trail. No, I realized, I hadn’t
  been miserable. And I didn’t want him to be miserable. Okay, maybe just
  a little miserable. Or maybe I wanted him to be happy. I sighed. Being the
  bigger person was hard, especially when you weren’t really even a person
  anymore.

Mallory’s statement “Being the bigger person was hard, especially when you weren’t really even a person anymore” is a profound recognition—both for Mallory and Mallory’s audience. It not only captures the growth Mallory experiences throughout the story, but it also stands as a gentle reminder that acceptance is necessary in life—and for death.

“The Fixer” is one of those short stories that readers will long remember after they have finished it. It is a strangely thrill blur of sci-fi, psychological horror, and forbidden romance. At first, readers might expect the story to wax towards the comical given the opening lines: “Administering CPR to a robot was a different skill set, and not every technician could master it. So those who could do it and do it well were in high demand.” However, the dark-humored tinge quickly abates, and the story of Frank Zimmerman, a robot technician with the reputation of being “the best robot resuscitator there ever was.” The world D’Angelo creates in this story is not quite as terrifying as I, Robot. Nonetheless, the world in which Frank thrives—one where humans and robots live, party, exist, and even procreate together—is a thought-provoking one that may not be as far from fiction as D’Angelo’s readers would like it to be. Thus, “The Fixer” poses a few moral scenarios that might give some readers pause. How does a world in which humans and robots are nearly indistinctive from one another actually function? When does body modification go too far? At what point do the fine lines between what is human and what is not blur and become unrecognizable? When does technology become too overbearing and intrusive? Most of all, the story is an examination of emotional and intellectual capacity—an examination that is largely relevant as the rise of artificial intelligence continues to shock and awe not only its creators, but also the general public who feel threatened by AI’s potentiality for a takeover.

Lori D’Angelo’s The Monsters are Here is not just a collection for the spookiest of seasons. It is a book filled with the strange, the stunning, the perplexing, and the hilarious. It provokes and prods, navigates and innovates. Emotionally and psychologically, these stories dare to travel into the human psyche’s innermost depths in order to explore the places where the real monsters reside: inside all of us, whether we like to admit or not.