The story of how Mary Shelley created FRANKENSTEIN – on a stormy night as part of a ghost story contest – has become legend, recounted in English-class textbooks and dramatized in films such as GOTHIC and HAUNTED SUMMER. But all tend to focus on that night alone, glossing over everything that happened before and after. As it turns out, that’s the story that’s more shocking than the resulting novel, as THE MONSTERS: MARY SHELLEY AND THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN illustrates over and over again.
Written by spouses Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, THE MONSTERS argues that two icons were born that night, the other being John Polidori’s modern-day “vampyre,” and though literary history clearly was made, none of the five participants at Lord Byron’s Swiss retreat experienced a happily ever after. We learn about all of them: the bisexual, promiscuous poet Byron; his friend Percy Shelley, equally as vain and self-absorbed; Byron’s doctor, Polidori, forever mocked by his patient; and Claire Claremont, Byron’s latest conquest and the half-sister of Percy’s fiancée Mary.
Though this non-fiction tale covers the oft-intersecting lives of this quintet in remarkable detail, it is largely Mary’s story. Born to a mother who died in childbirth, Mary suffered all her life with an inattentive father and an inattentive husband, which helped contribute to her depressive state. Prior to reading this book, I had no idea she struggled with depression, and the Hooblers include a wealth of other facts you may not have known, from FRANKENSTEIN initially being published anonymously to Byron’s taste in underage boys.
THE MONSTERS is a story of love, lust, fame and fortune, but also one of addiction, adultery, incest and many unfortunate deaths. It is this last point for which the book earns its CURSE OF subtitle, as the various participants experience or even contribute to untimely passings. Byron and Percy come off as the villains of this real-life tale, and they should: They were preening, spoiled pricks who thought nothing of abandoning their own flesh and blood, or belittling Mary every chance they got.
Of course, being younger and less – shall we say – experimental, Mary outlived them all. She even had the last laugh, as her creation remains a household name nearly 200 years later. Still, her life was a mostly sad one, and as THE MONSTERS details every reason why, it also brings her the respect she deserved. Through excellent research and an unflinching eye, the Hooblers have crafted what is – just behind MANHUNT – the most enjoyable non-fiction book I’ve read so far this year. –Rod Lott
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