Jeff Jackson's Destroy All Monsters is two novels in one. The cataclysms are small but the things that people use to define themselves slowly begin to corrode and warp like a record played too many times. The dual narratives meander and take harrowing turns, but end in the characters' attempts at genuine human connection.
Destroy All Monsters is split down the middle, with an "A Side" and "B Side" representing different takes on a single premise. In both, a rash of killings breaks out, with concert attendees murdering the performers. The "A Side," titled "My Dark Ages," features Xenie, a young music aficionado coping with the horrific murder of her boyfriend, Shaun. In the "B Side," Xenie herself is killed at a concert, leaving Shaun to pick up the pieces. In both sections, Jackson plumbs the depths of their grief and pushes into the strange, conspiracy-like web of the killings.
Both tales capture the surreal moments after the death of a loved one, and Jackson (Mira Corpora) rarely diverges from the dreamlike quality he gives to most scenes. There are bands with crazy names, declarations of love in the strangest places and, of course, brutal murders described in graphic detail. In the end, the characters' gnawing need to feel connection--with each other and their lives--gives the book pathos without losing its macabre edges. --Noah Cruickshank, adult engagement manager, the Field Museum, Chicago, Ill.