Monkey Taming

Synopsis

“You’ve eaten too much you fat pig.” Inside thirteen-year-old Jessica lived The Monkey, a driving, fiery voice telling her that thinness was the only way. The only way to be safe, to be good, to be acceptable and above all, to escape from the looming threat of approaching adulthood. Jessica listened to the Monkey, and it consumed her. This is the illuminating story of a teenage girl’s wanderings in darkness: the terrible realities of an adolescent psychiatric unit, and the stark choice that she must either tame her monster — or die. Through memory, reflection and enduring black humour, Jessica makes a tenuous peace with the world, and with her emerging adult self.