Monkey Beach

“She’s got to know about these things.”

Mick is a major influence on Lisa, and they share personality traits of rebelliousness and independence. Mick is also important for introducing Lisa to new ideas and culture, including protest music and the American Indian rights movement. To Lisa’s mother, he insists that Lisa, even as a young girl, must develop pride in her culture and become conscious of the injustices that have been committed against Canadian Indigenous groups.

“Oolichan grease is a delicacy that you have to grow up eating to love.”

Monkey Beach often references Haisla vocabulary, history, and culture. Food is one of the most frequently discussed aspects of culture in the book. The novel even includes a long description of how to prepare and use grease from oolichan fish. The grease has a distinctive flavor and not everyone enjoys it, Lisa explains. For Lisa, however, oolichan grease is particularly connected to fond memories of spending time with Ma-ma-oo.

“Ma-ma-oo told Jimmy that feeding crows brought you good luck.” 

Birds, and especially crows, are important throughout Monkey Beach. Jimmy initially begins to care for crows after Ma-ma-oo tells him they are good luck. He believes they will help him have success in competitive swimming. However, they also become an important way for Lisa to connect to spirits, and particularly to Jimmy after he disappears. At the beginning of the novel, Lisa hears the crows telling her to go down to the water. They later awaken her from a dream, prompting her to leave home to seek Jimmy. Thus, the crows do prove to be fortunate, by aiding the spiritual bond between Lisa and Jimmy. 

“Contacting the dead, lesson one. Sleep is an altered state of consciousness.” 

Spirits of the dead contact Lisa in her sleep many times. The little man is one prominent example, with his habit of appearing in her bedroom as portent of terrible events. In sleep, Lisa is not separated from the world, but she does reach another plane of consciousness, where the land of dreams connects to the land of the dead and spirits may contact her. 

“Food is dust in my mouth without you.”

Ma-ma-oo utters a poem at Ba-ba-oo’s grave when she visits it with Lisa. The poem is a plaintive remembrance of her husband and a remembrance of the dead. More specifically, it references loss and the way that Lisa and Ma-ma-oo pay tribute to the dead by offering them food and drink like cake, Twinkies, and whisky. In mourning, the living—like Lisa and Ma-ma-oo—do not need or want the food; they find it tasteless because they are distraught. Instead, they symbolically give the food to honor the dead, sharing what they have with those they miss.

“A part of me still wanted to be like them; but somehow it didn’t matter.” 

While Monkey Beach focuses on Lisa’s connections to the dead and to the spirit world, the novel’s plot is set against the backdrop of her youth. She attempts to understand her age group. She knows that she’s different from others her age, and she knows she doesn’t fit in with popular girls. Yet she is also independent, bold, and resigned to her unusual personality. As a result, she is equipped to strike out on her own, socially, though she instead finds company in Frank and his friends. 

“Contacting the dead, lesson two. […] Names have power. This is the fundamental principle of magic everywhere.”

Lisa’s second “lesson” on contacting the dead is more mysterious than the first. She notes the importance of listening for a voice that calls to the listener. In many magical and spiritual traditions, knowing the name for something symbolizes power over it, and the ability to invoke it. Lisa is most concerned with understanding the voices and spirits that call her and seem to know her. One of Lisa’s conflicts is learning to live with the power that the voices of spirits have over her: listening to them, while retaining the power to control herself and keep herself safe. 

“Contacting the dead, lesson three. Seeing ghosts is a trick of concentration.”

Lisa is attuned to spirits and to visitations from the dead. Contact from them is a familiar part of her life, and though it sometimes causes her to be alarmed, she is often unperturbed by the presence of the dead, and even seeks out contact with them. By calling her experience with ghosts a matter of concentration that she has honed, Lisa implies that she has the ability to be alert and ready to receive contact from the dead, an ability that sets her apart from others. 

“Ah, tobacco, whose sacred smoke carries wishes to the spirit world. Please let me find Jimmy.” 

A material that floats and disappears, tobacco smoke can be a metaphor for ghosts or spirits. Lisa is accustomed to also seeing tobacco as a gift given to the dead, as when Ma-ma-oo offers some to the spirit of her dead husband. Thus, it is no shock that Lisa offers up this prayer to tobacco to help her find Jimmy after he disappears on his fishing trip. There is also humor in Lisa’s statement, however, because she is smoking the cigarette she received from the man named Greg, one she requested simply as a convenient excuse to get away from him. 

“I liked smoking. I liked hanging out and goofing around. The rest of it seemed a waste of time.”

Smoking, for Lisa, is also a part of her rebelliousness and independence as an adolescent. She feels a lack of ambition throughout most of her teen years and feels like an outcast. Yet underneath these feelings of isolation, Lisa forges strong connections to certain people, like Mick, Ma-ma-oo, Frank, and Pooch. These connections are forged through hanging out and goofing around with no objective, proving that for Lisa, her lack of ambition was nevertheless meaningful. 

“[T]hat temper of yours is gonna get you killed one day.” 

The stranger who breaks up the fight Lisa has with a group of white men in Terrace gives her a stern warning about her boldness, meaning it as a straightforward comment. Yet it foreshadows the dangers she finds herself in later in the novel when Cheese rapes her. Ironically, it is not the white men who cause harm, but Cheese, one of her own Haisla culture. The stranger’s comments also foreshadow Ma-ma-oo’s warnings about the oxasuli flower and her gift of being able to communicate with the dead, both of which Ma-ma-oo tells Lisa will do her harm unless she can control them.

“We should have never named you after Mick.”

Lisa’s father Al expresses frustration after the white men argue with and nearly attack Lisa while they are in Terrace. His frustration stems from the danger he perceives she put herself in. Yet his comment is also recognition of the connection between Lisa and Mick, which Al and his wife Gladys inadvertently foreshadowed by giving Lisa the middle name Michelle in honor of Mick (Michael). 

“I wished I could pick berries and go fishing with Ma-ma-oo and spend all my days wandering.”

Lisa’s comment about how much she enjoyed spending time with Ma-ma-oo is sweet and endearing, showing how much solace and comfort she finds in spending time with her grandmother. Her experiences with Ma-ma-oo also contrast strongly with the frustrations she finds in dealing with her peer group. The activities she mentions enjoying with Ma-ma-oo also stress time outdoors, freedom, and wandering, conveying a restlessness not unlike that of the spirits that communicate with Lisa. 

“The problems of the beautiful and the popular, I thought, rolling my eyes.” 

At Jimmy’s birthday party, Lisa watches how Jimmy reacts to the numerous girls who flirt with him. Unlike Lisa, who is a social outcast, Jimmy is good-looking, a successful swimmer, and magnetic. Lisa reacts sarcastically to Jimmy’s popularity, but at the same time, her comment underscores how isolated and alone she feels.

“If you never fall in love, you never get your heart broken.”

Earlier in Monkey Beach, Lisa expressed a preference for hanging out instead of becoming involved in romantic relationships. Lisa’s most explicit rejection of romantic love exemplifies how she has built walls around herself, and it provides a rationale for her decision to remain single. Yet her comment also implies that her decision to avoid romantic relationships is in part a tactic to avoid being hurt. This reveals that while Lisa is a strong and independent character, she has vulnerabilities as well.

“Two volunteer firemen carried her body up out of the rubble. She had no hair, no skin. She was charred and smelled like bacon.” 

The moment Lisa sees her grandmother Ma-ma-oo’s corpse being pulled out of her home, which has burned around her, is a devastating close to the tender relationship they shared. The detail about the corpse smelling like bacon is an allusion to the fact that Ma-ma-oo’s house was set on fire when she tried to secretly cook bacon, which she was not supposed to do after her stroke. In addition, the charred appearance of the corpse evokes the hideous creature Lisa sees in a psychiatrist’s office. Ma-ma-oo had been encouraging of Lisa’s spiritual abilities, so seeing her reduced to a burnt corpse is shattering, though Lisa will eventually re-establish spiritual contact with Ma-ma-oo. 

“If I had listened to my gift instead of ignoring it, I could have saved her.”

Lisa feels guilt after Ma-ma-oo’s death. It was Ma-ma-oo who had told Lisa that her ability to communicate with spirits was a gift. Thus, Lisa blames herself for ignoring signs that might have warned her, such as the little man who had been an ominous portent in other cases. Lisa’s sense of guilt is so strong that she is apathetic about inheriting a large sum of money from Ma-ma-oo. The relationship with her grandmother was much more valuable. 

“As I drove away, I felt deeply comforted knowing that magical things were still living in the world.”

As Lisa drives to Pooch’s funeral, the sight of a possible B’gwus comforts her rather than scares her. She had been feeling disconnected from her ability to hear and see ghosts and other supernatural beings. In addition, she felt guilt after Ma-ma-oo’s death, for not having done something to prevent her death. The sight of the B’gwus is a validating sign for Lisa that she still has her gift. 

“Another one of my brilliant plans down the tubes.”

Returning home after months of partying in Vancouver, Lisa attempts to get her life in order. Jimmy had been star, and she an apathetic outcast. Now she finds that their roles have inverted. While he experiences failure, she attempts to save him by taking him on a fishing trip. Lisa feels her attempt to help Jimmy is ruined when he does not appreciate the plan. At the same time, she does not give up on Jimmy, and after his disappearance, she is fixated on how to find him and/or contact his spirit.

“I used to think you were weak. I mean, everyone has people die on them and they don’t… give up. But all it took was my shoulder and I quit.”

One positive outcome of the failed fishing trip Lisa takes Jimmy on is that the two of them talk. After arguing, they open up to each other about their motivations, fears, and doubts. When Lisa left to live alone in Vancouver for a time, her relationship with Jimmy and the rest of her family was put on pause. While Lisa might not have been able to get Jimmy’s life back on track during the fishing trip, their conversation shows that they were at least able to reestablish their sibling bond.

“I hold him there in my memory.”

Lisa reflects on the end of a fishing trip when Jimmy jumps into the water to swim among orca whales. Moving naturally among the majestic whales, Jimmy exudes joy. The memory is poignant to Lisa for two reasons. First, the moment came during Jimmy’s lowest period, when he was bitter after he had been forced to give up his dream of competitive swimming due to an injury. Lisa enjoys seeing Jimmy swim happily again. Second, Lisa holds on to this memory of Jimmy after he has disappeared on a fishing trip. For Lisa, the happy memory suggests hope that Jimmy will be found, but also a denial of the fear that he is dead. 

“Thank God at least one of us is getting a happy ending.” 

Lisa compares her failed social and romantic life to Jimmy’s, after his relationship with Karaoke starts to become serious. His intent to marry Karaoke strikes Lisa as a sign that his life is in good shape, unlike her own, which continues to seem directionless and isolated. Lisa’s statement plays with the idea of a story having a happy ending. Ironically, the novel suggests that Jimmy’s story has anything but a happy ending, as he remains lost and potentially dead at its close.

“You have a dangerous gift. [… I]t’s like oxasuli. Unless you know how to use it, it will kill you.” 

Ma-ma-oo’s comment to Lisa that she has a gift echoes a similar statement that she made about oxasuli to Lisa when Ma-ma-oo was still alive. Even after death, Ma-ma-oo continues to support Lisa, but also stresses the danger of Lisa’s connections to the spirit world. The native plant oxasuli, which Ma-ma-oo had taught Lisa to gather, is a metaphor for this situation; it is a medicine when used correctly, but a poison when used incorrectly. The mention of oxasuli also stresses Haisla identity.