“[A] story that travels relentlessly between a difficult present and an unfinished past… In this case, bringing together the child and the seasoned adult may involve a kind of spiritual revolution, a casting off of the past by a reliving of it, a turn in the middle years toward a different way of being… he must change his life… At the heart of the novel’s own tenacity and optimism is Frankie’s mother, his mamita, Yolanda Montejo… her gaiety and crooked, defiant spirit… Monkey Boy steadily becomes a moving and tender elegy for a woman who seems to have spent most of her life suspended warily between visceral love of her birthplace and learned gratitude for her adopted home.”—James Wood, New Yorker

“An autofictional inquiry into the protean nature of identity, written with disarming candor and grace, blending memory and imagination to transformational effect.”—Pulitzer Prize Committee

“An enrapturing novel, a Proustian trip through one man’s life and memory, as well as the violent history of colonization that binds the Americas… Goldberg’s most finely observed subject is himself, rendered with empathy and skepticism, intimacy and distance, tenderness and resignation.”—Viet Thanh Nguyen, American Book Award Citation

“Brilliantly constructed auto-fiction… Goldman writes with humor and honesty as he unpacks some of America’s senseless racial politics and deconstructs one family’s volatile, cross cultural history. The result is a family portrait that is funny, loving and fierce, all at the same time.”—Martha Anne Toll, NPR

“Francisco Goldman’s new novel, Monkey Boy… is positively boiling over with original metaphors and insights… he’s a writer of real force and originality…with rare vitality and humor… This book is about all these women, and how alive they are, but not just as presences who appear and speak for themselves. It’s also about how vivid these women are in the mind, and in the interior life, of the narrator… a connoisseur of female strength and eccentricity.”—Rachel Kushner, Literary Hub

“Goldman is a master writer—In Monkey Boy, he leaves nothing at bay, attending to the most important questions facing our nation and the most gentle questions turning in our hearts. It is a book, like any journey across vast distances, that we cannot help but commit to imperfect, passionate memory. ”—Ricardo Frasso Jaramillo, The Believer

“Goldman’s voice and storytelling powers have never been more insinuating or powerful.”—Kirkus Editor-in-Chief Tom Beer’s Ten Favorite Reads of 2021

“Reading this book is like reading a family saga, a memoir and a novel while listening to an old friend telling stories about his life. . . the seriousness of these topics is counterbalanced by Goldman’s knack for beautiful language, straightforward prose and sense of humor. . . And it’s all carried by Goldman’s distinct style. His words will linger in the minds and hearts of readers long after they’ve turned the last page.”—Gabino Iglesias, San Francisco Chronicle

“By taking us along with him, drawing us so deftly into moments of intimacy and worldliness, brutality and beauty, the author effectively ceases to be an outsider. In Monkey Boy he has crafted his own E pluribus unum, with room enough for stories lived, written or read — and, of course, for the two Franciscos, Goldberg and Goldman.”—Ellen Akins, Washington Post

“Goldman’s narrative suggests that America has never been one thing or another, but rather a constantly shifting constellation of socially constructed affiliations, stitched together in memory and experience … Goldberg is an extremely fluid, knowing narrator.”—Ed Morales, The Nation

“An enrapturing novel… Filtered through a deeply personal and idiosyncratic narrative that is beguiling in its voice. That voice, or those voices, of Goldman the author and Goldberg the narrator pull the reader in the way a warm bath does, until one is completely immersed up to the neck or perhaps the ears, in no way wishing to leave.”—Viet Thanh Nguyen

“From the painful intimate violence in a suburban New England home, to racial cruelty among high school teenagers, to the US government’s political and military interventionism in Latin America, Goldman’s sweeping gaze runs through multiple circuits of America’s violence, showing us how deeply connected they in fact are. With the exact balance of outrage and hope, Monkey Boy takes us on an eye-opening journey, full of tenderness and horror, through the often-ignored layers of this country’s history. A powerful, necessary book.”―Valeria Luiselli