Resume with Monsters
Harried Philip Kenan is battling a series of bad jobs–and the monsters from H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction. While aided in his fight by unorthodox therapist Dr. Lily Metcalf, there is still a problem–he is being drawn back to the dark time, to the Doom That Came to MicroMeg. Can Philip save his estranged lover this time, or will monsters triumph?.A dark-humored employee-angst novel, seasoned liberally with the Cthulhu Mythos. Spencer has a wonderful antic wit — he reminds me of Thomas Disch, as in The Businessman. His hapless hero bounces from one dead-end job (Ralph’s One-Day Resumes) to another (corporate giants with names like MicroMeg and Pelidyne), but he can’t seem to get away from those monsters. Great scenes in which Xerox machines and fax machines and the industrial sprinklers they install overhead in offices interact with Lovecraft’s Elder Gods. Lightweight, as horror novels go, but unusually good fun. Winner of the 1995 International Horror Critics Guild Award for Best Novel.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars I Laughed Until I Hurt
This achingly funny book introduces the idea that America’s corporations are actually run by H.P. Lovecraft monsters…it makes perfect sense to me. The author’s view of corporate culture is dead-on accurate, and behind the laughs, there is real anger at the utter dehumanization of the contemporary workplace, and at the weakness of American workers who have allowed themselves to be turned into corporate fodder. In its own nutty way, this is a very important book.
4 Stars Monstrously engaging, Résumé is a classic
Between finding time to fill in your timesheets with colored pencils and attending a late night AA meeting that’s not overflowing with zombies and ghouls, read Spencer’s “Résumé With Monsters.” What Dilbert did for corporate America in the funny pages, Résumé does with Lovecraft’s pantheon of nasties.
Though the troubled protagonist is defeatist enough that you don’t necessarily care if he wins or loses, the way Spencer slips in the scalpel and peels back the nightmarish absurdity of “working for the man” in a world gone crazy is a delight.
4 Stars quite outstanding
s book is quite out-standing. I have 2 reasons to be biased. Numbre uno I live in Austin and love the city so anything in this city is good to me and well the book is set in Austin and numbre dos I like little eccentric characters. (by the way the author himself is also from Austin as far as I know.
I have never read Lovecraft or much science fiction (other than few Aurther C Clarke and Orson Scott Card). But this is very different. The plot travels in time and space between reality and fantasy and the author is able to create a tie between the two. At some point the fantasy seems to be true and we are just lost in the world of Love craft. I wish I had read Love craft then I would have enjoyed it more.
The book is about a struggling author who tries to survive the hostile corporate world (the money making machine which I hate) and moves to and fro between reality and dream. His characters in everyday life like his girl friend (Amelia), cohort Monica, employer Ralph all travel with him. Time frames are not of importance but the space frame encompass all the characters in an imaginary world of Lovecraft’s characters. Spencer’s depiction of the corporate hi-tech world is brilliant and satirical and some of the similes he uses is hilarious as for example “you have to crack some eggs to make an omelets”. This may be a little auto-biographical which makes it more realistic. As a whole i enjoyed reading it and so will you.
I have given it 4 stars because I reserve 5 stars for the best of the best like “100 years of solitude” so please do not worry about that.
5 Stars Brilliant Adaptation of Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft always intended his Cthulu mythos to live through other authors’ pens. If Lovecraft were alive today he would certainly find William Spencer Browning’s treatment most entertaining. In “Resume with Monsters,” Browning artfully welds together the infinite horrors of Lovecraft’s Old Ones with the modern banalities of life in the corporate world. The result is a book loaded with hilarious dialogue, humorous scenes, and a good deal of light horror.
Philip has a big problem. He sees monsters at work, behind every filing cabinet, around every corner, in the eyes of his fellow co-workers, and in motivational pamphlets handed out in his paycheck envelope. In order to maintain his slipping sanity, Philip spends his free time constantly rewriting his sprawling 2000 page book called “The Despicable Quest,” a Lovecraftian tome full of references to Azathoth, Yog-Sathoth, and other unpleasant beings from beyond space and time. Philip is aware that spouting off about monsters from dimensions beyond our own tends to alarm people, which brings in Lily, an aging psychologist who promises Philip she can help him through his troubles.
Philip probably would not have many problems with his demons if he gave up trying to save his ex-girlfriend Amelia. Philip’s relentless quest to expose the monsters coupled with the undying devotion to his book infuriated Amelia, spurring a rancorous split. When she moves to Texas Philip follows her, desperate to convince Amelia that he once saved her from eternal doom when the two worked at MicroMeg, a giant international corporation (the details of which can be found in the section of the book hilariously entitled, “The Doom that Came to MicroMeg). Philip drifts from one low paying job to another, always on the lookout for the reemergence of the evil ones. Not only does Philip see potential evil at his own jobs, there seems to be something seriously astray at Pelidyne, a big company where Amelia just started a new job. It looks like Philip will have to return once again into the belly of the beast.
Spencer really has a grasp of Lovecraft’s horrific intentions. His style does not reflect Lovecraft’s ornate use of the English language, but many of the adventures Philip embarks on mirror a trip through a Lovecraft novel: the weird bending of time and space, the strange rituals of the Old Ones, and the feeling of helplessness one gets when confronting an evil beyond the comprehension of the human mind.
I suspect there is a lot of the author in this story. My copy has a painting on the front cover of a man who looks suspiciously like the picture of Browning on the back cover. The detailed descriptions of corporate stupidity and the shrieking mindlessness of working a low paying job tell me that the author spent many years working in the same type of jobs as Philip does in the novel. Anyone who has ever worked in a boring job with high pressure jerks as bosses will recognize and sympathize with Philip’s plight. Ultimately, that is the greatest horror in “Resume with Monsters”: the pressures of a job in today’s world are worse than seeing monsters with dripping scales falling out of a time rip in the ceiling.
The comical aspects of the book abound throughout the story. Everything from Philip’s confessions about the evil ones to the motivational pamphlets is gut bustingly funny. Be sure and pay attention to the group sessions during Philip’s stay in the mental hospital. These scenes are some of the funniest in the book.
“Resume with Monsters” is essential reading for Lovecraft fans. Those who are unfamiliar with Lovecraft may want to read at least one collection of his stories before settling into this book because the references to particular entities are meaningless unless you understand the mythos. I am placing Spencer’s book in my top five list of books read this year, and I hope you will too.
4 Stars Cthulhu Is Alive And Well And Living In Your Head
This is the story of Philip Keenan, a forty-five year-old man working in a quickee resume print shop. Philip used to have a good job at Micromeg. Unfortunately Philip lost his job after preventing the Old Ones from jumping into our space and time. Philip’s ex-girlfriend (who’s life he claims to have saved) thinks he is crazy. His coworkers think he is crazy. The institutions he has been in think he is crazy. Even his therapist believes this. But Philip knows he is sane and that all of the monsters of H.P. Lovecraft are real. The reader is made to side against Philip. Ah, but what if Philip is NOT crazy? There is the little matter of… But that would be telling. Suffice it to say, Mythos fans SHOULD read this book. You know who you are.
This is a well-written book (as well as any mythos book). My only problem with the book is that I kept thinking Philip was younger. Mid-twenties perhaps. Otherwise, it is a very enjoyable, and fast, 500 page read. I do recommend this one.
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