Monkey Beach

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Pages 1-40

Part 1, Pages 40-82

Part 1, Pages 82-138

Part 2, Pages 139-179

Part 2, Pages 179-232

Part 2, Pages 232-294

Part 3, Pages 295-336

Parts 3-4, Pages 336-374

Character Analysis

Themes

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Part 2, Pages 232-294Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Song of Your Breath”

Part 2, Pages 232-255 Summary

One Valentine’s day at school, Lisa gets an unsigned card presumably from Frank. Though she is nervous because she has not gotten her period, she has begun to be aware of her sexuality. She notices that Frank’s voice has begun to change, and that a girl named Julie is interested in Frank. However, Lisa still prefers to hang out rather than get involved with anyone romantically. Frank takes Julie to a school dance instead of Lisa, who shows little interest. Frank and Julie become a couple. Cheese asks Lisa if she wants to go out with him to make Frank jealous, which makes Lisa angry. Lisa spends more time with Pooch.

One day, Lisa asks Pooch if he talks to his father, who killed himself. The little man visits Lisa again one night, and subsequently she learns that Ma-ma-oo has had a heart attack. She recovers, but she has to watch her diet and has become weakened. She decides to take daily oolichan grease supplements when her doctor prescribes a fish oil treatment.

Lisa goes with her father and Jimmy to the town of Terrace for a swim meet. While Jimmy is at the competition, Lisa wanders the town and sees her cousin Erica being harassed by white men. Erica runs off, but Lisa faces the men down. Just before they grab Lisa, another man comes along and tells them to leave. He tells Lisa, “that temper of yours is gonna get you killed one day” (251). Her father is upset when he learns what happened and wonders why she didn’t call the police. Exasperated, he remarks, “[w]e should have never named you after Mick” (252).

Lisa continues to feel listless. She wishes she “could pick berries and go fishing with Ma-ma-oo and spend all my days wandering” (253). Tab is once again back in town. She again mentions how going to residential school harmed Mick and Trudy, and states that Ba-ba-oo was violent. Trudy says Lisa needs to be careful, and that the white men in Terrace could have killed her. She suggests that since they were white and Lisa is a “mouthy Indian,” the men could have gotten away with it (255). Trudy says that at the residential school there were priests who had their way with kids. She then apologizes to Lisa, saying that she has a “mouth,” too.

Part 2, Pages 255-270 Summary

Lisa goes to a party in an abandoned house. Cheese, “emerging from the shadows,” hands her a beer (257). She begins to feel dizzy, then faints outside, where Cheese rapes her. Lisa makes it back to Tab’s house, where Trudy lets her in. The little man reappears and seems tenderly concerned for her, but Lisa tells him to not come again. The next day, Lisa burns the clothes she was wearing the night before. At the same time, she has a vision of crows, crabs, rotted meat, and a dead kitten. She also hears voices saying, “We can hurt him for you” (261). Frank comes over and tells Lisa he heard that Cheese and Lisa are going out and had sex. Lisa says Cheese “lies and he’s mean. [… I]f he comes near me again, I’m going to kill him” (263).

Lisa begins to sleepwalk, and to hear footsteps. Ma-ma-oo tells her not to be afraid of them, because ghosts just cause them. When she begins to see ghosts, her parents take Lisa to a doctor. Lisa sees Pooch while there. He tells her that Frank is angry and beat up Cheese. Life goes on listlessly for Lisa, and she no longer talks to Frank when she sees him.

Part 2, Pages 271-294 Summary

Ma-ma-oo and Lisa pick soapberries. Lisa again asks her grandmother about Ba-ba-oo. Lisa is taken to a psychiatrist. While there, she sees a hideous, burnt-looking and sexually suggestive creature. The psychiatrist asks Lisa if she thinks the ghosts she sees are just her way to deal with death. Lisa says no, even as she watches the hideous creature touch her.

The novel returns to the present time. While in her boat on the way to Monkey Beach, Lisa thinks about a myth of how Weegit the crow shaped the landscape. Her thoughts then once again go back to her youth. After Cheese assaults her, Lisa struggles more in school and is uninterested in making any detailed plans about her future. When she says she wants to work in the nearby cannery, her parents lecture her. At the same time, Lisa begins to hang out with her cousin Erica again. At Erica’s sweet 16 party, she sees Adelaine Jones beat a boy up. Jimmy has become infatuated with Adelaine. Lisa and Pooch have casual sex. She remarks that “[h]e wasn’t in love with me […] but it was nice” (287).

Ma-ma-oo has a stroke. Lisa is caught off guard because she hadn’t seen the little man as a warning this time. Ma-ma-oo is greatly weakened and seems near death. Lisa says she does not want her to go, and Ma-ma-oo assures her she is alright. Nevertheless, Ma-ma-oo begins to see ghosts all around her. She gives Lisa a locket with a picture of Mick inside, and Lisa thanks her.

One night, Ma-ma-oo accidentally sets fire to her house when she tries to fry some bacon, which she’d been forbidden to eat after her stroke. She is alone and injures herself when she tries to put out the fire. As a result, she burns to death inside. Lisa sees Ma-ma-oo’s body, with “no hair, no skin,” carried out by two firemen (293). Lisa learns that Ma-ma-oo left Lisa all her money, which totals more than $219,000. Nevertheless, Lisa is unconcerned with the money and lets her parents put it in a trust fund. She is distraught that she could not or did not do anything to save Ma-ma-oo. Part 2 ends as Lisa’s thoughts return to the present time, and she arrives at Monkey Beach.

Part 2, Pages 212-294 Analysis

The closing section of Part 2 continues to portray Lisa’s relationship with Ma-ma-oo, but also explores her varied relationships with men. The section starts with an exposition of innocent relationships, when Lisa receives an unsigned Valentine card she assumes is from Frank. However, Lisa shows her independence by brushing off Frank’s awkward advances and opting not to seek a romantic relationship.

Lisa’s relationship to men takes a darker turn when she encounters the white men in Terrace who harass her. She again shows strength by standing up to their verbal taunts, racial slurs, and threats, but is very nearly harmed in the process. Other people’s reactions to the incident are also telling. Lisa’s father Al shows his conservatism in his shock that Lisa didn’t contact the police for help instead of standing the men down on her own. Aunt Trudy shows another kind of conservatism when she warns Lisa that her “mouth” could get her harmed. Her comment is a veiled suggestion that women should not speak up because it can be dangerous, and a subtle acceptance of racial aggression.

Trudy’s warning is ironically twisted as the section goes on. Lisa is indeed harmed by a man, but the aggressor turns out to be Cheese, a Haisla, rather than a white man or other outsider. By raping Lisa, Cheese shows that danger can potentially come from any direction in life, not necessarily the most expected one. The casual sexual relationship Lisa develops with Pooch shows she recovers to find some pleasure, but she chooses to avoid seeking a commitment or validation of her identity through a relationship. Yet when Pooch commits suicide in Part 3, even this comfort is destroyed.

Throughout the closing of Part 2, Jimmy’s character continues to draw a sharp contrast to Lisa’s. Unlike Lisa, he seeks a relationship, though he desires Adelaine, whose troubled and somewhat unpredictable personality resembles Lisa’s more than Jimmy’s. Against the backdrop of these explorations of Lisa’s relationships with men, Part 2 deepens the depiction of her connection to Ma-ma-oo. Even after Ma-ma-oo’s health deteriorates, Lisa and Ma-ma-oo engage in simple, comforting activities including picking berries and talking about family. Ma-ma-oo does not judge Lisa’s personal choices or habits. This creates a touching relationship, which Lisa expresses tenderly by saying, “I don’t want you to leave” (285).

The little man appears to Lisa the night of Ma-ma-oo’s heart attack, confirming the connection between the little man and premonitions of danger. Lisa is surprised when she does not see the little man before Ma-ma-oo dies in a house fire. However, the narrative implies a correspondence between the hideous creature Lisa sees in the psychiatrist’s office with “no flesh, just tight, thin skin over bones” and Ma-ma-oo’s corpse, which Lisa sees being pulled out of the fire, with “no hair, no skin” (272, 293). The hideous creature, instead of the little man, is a premonition of Ma-ma-oo’s terrible death.