Vacuum in the Dark: A Novel
Vacuum in the Dark: A Novel book cover

Vacuum in the Dark: A Novel

Hardcover – February 26, 2019

by
Price
$11.37
Format
Hardcover
Pages
240
Publisher
Scribner
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1501182143
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.8 x 8.38 inches
Weight
10.6 ounces

Description

Praise for Vacuum in the Dark " A follow-up to the riotous Pretend I'm Dead, this is what a sequel should be: darker, sexier, funnier. By turns nutty and forlorn... Brash, deadpan, and achingly troubled, Mona emerges as that problematic friend you’re nonetheless always thrilled to see." ― O, the Oprah Magazine “This novel is a joy: truly laugh-out-loud funny, while staying grounded and dignified, even as Mona capsizes again and again.” ― Stephanie Danler, The New York Times Book Review "Axa0thoroughly delightfully, surprisingly profound encore.xa0Beagin stands out among fiction’s fresh crop of promising voices: Her prose is dry, cutting, and genuinely funny; she loves writing about strange people, an affection which translates in characterizations that stay sharp and peculiar without ever turning cruel... Vacuum proves dramatically satisfying too, as Beagin pushes its boundaries to grant us deeper, darker access into Mona’s interior life, and the pain of her troubled past. The character’s salty perspective resonates perfectly — a kind, weary, almost laconic wit that carries a sneaky depth." ― Entertainment Weekly "Axa0wildly exuberant novel that doesn't shy away from the weirder and more disgusting parts of life. Vacuum in the Dark is a funny and surprisingly sweet book about a young woman who grew up too fast and is trying desperately to reinvent herself...xa0Beagin is a wonderfully funny writer who also happens to tackle serious subjects, which few authors are able to pull off successfully...xa0the result is a comic novel that's a joy to read but never frivolous or superficial. Beagin is unafraid to take risks, and they all pay off here — Vacuum in the Dark is an excellent book by a writer with a singular voice." ― NPR "Energetic... These adventures open up into larger questions of Mona’s own stalled artistic ambitions and a reckoning with her estranged mother—issues refracted with black humor and a sense of timing that rarely slackens... The escapades are underpinned by a strong voice that seems to have seen everyone’s worst, and to have nothing left to conceal." ― The New Yorker "Piquantly amusing... Weird, darkly funny...xa0sharply drawn, sexually charged, wry with Mona’s deadpan wit."xa0 ― Minneapolis Star Tribune "Revels in both order and transgression... Stands alone beautifully...xa0Mona’s unforgettably wry voice remains throughout." ― Vulture "Tremendously engaging... Funny and poignant... Beagin excels at mixing comedy and pathos in a way that dilutes neither... Beagin secures her position as a new writer to watch.xa0 ― Kirkus, starred reviews "Sharp and superb... Beagin pulls no punches--this novel is viciously smart and morbidly funny." ― Publishers Weekly, starred review "Inventing situations and conversations that are off-the-charts in both weirdness and relatability, Beagin fashions an enchantingly intriguing main character in unfiltered, warmhearted Mona. This story of a woman embracing life's what-ifs and her own darkness is a great read." ― Booklist, starred review "Beagin introduces readers to several recurring characters whose quirkiness infuses the book with its humor and drawing power." ― Albuquerque Journal "Fresh, strange, hilarious and very moving... I am so taken with this book. I loved it...It reminded me a bit of Dennis Johnson’s Jesus’s Son or a more hardcore, ravaged Lorrie Moore... Other writers work this road but few so affectingly. The main character is a cleaning woman whose scars from childhood neglect and abuse are deeper and more complicated than we first realize or she understands... Gradually she bewitches and in her way inspires the reader. She has a real heroism as she tries to reclaim her life and, like her creator, has an absolutely piercing eye. I totally capitulated to her when she compared one of her clients lizard-killing cats to the Manson family and my affection for her grew from there with leaps and bounds. She is an unintentional artist and her lack of ambition about it and her drive to do it because it is necessary is one of the many, many interesting things about this novel... The writing is spare and feels effortless. Like the heroine it doesn’t call undue attention to itself but hovers on the brink of danger... I am kind of in awe of Jen Beagin. I am so glad she’s out there and am running backwards at a rapid speed to find her first book." -- George Hodgman, author of Bettyville Praise for Pretend I'm Dead "Alternately warm, sharp, and deeply wise... Scathingly funny."xa0 ― Entertainment Weekly " Vacuum in the Dark is wacky, wicked and funny on the surface but roiling below with danger and deep seriousness. Beagin’s writing style is breezy and light, and Mona is delightful and witty. This makes for enjoyable reading but ensures that the punches the book packs are hard-driving and always on target. Mona is refreshingly honest and heartbreakingly hurt. Beagin allows her protagonist to be strange and charming, sexual and smart, even as she forces Mona to confront pain, loss and uncertainty. This is a very good, original and human-hearted novel." ― Book Reporter "Rib-ticklingly funny-sad... [Beagin] works magic in the space between hilarity and heartbreak...xa0Absurdly affecting." ― O, the Oprah Magazine, a Best Book of 2018 “How can you resist a love story in which the object of desire is named Mr. Disgusting? Like Denis Johnson, Jen Beagin is able to find humanity and wonder (and yes, love) in some of the most forlorn and hopeless corners of our world.” -- Tom Perrotta, author of Mrs. Fletcher and The Leftovers" Pretend I'm Dead by Jen Beagin is like one of those old-fashioned classics by Charles Bukowski or John Fante or, more recently, Denis Johnson, a shambling, lyrical dispatch from the dive bars and the flop houses where the downtrodden, divested of hope, livelihood, good health, and any number of other markers of respectability, nevertheless retain full possession of their hearts and minds, their integrity, their souls, too, perhaps--and no one nearly as triumphantly as Mona Boyle, Beagin's heart-breaking hero & alter-ego. Rare is the encounter with such a frank and unflinching voice reporting from life on the edge, and rarer still the humor and compassion that Beagin manages to locate in some of the country's, and the psyche's, darkest corners. This book invaded my dreams, took over my conversation, and otherwise seduced me totally." -- Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End"Jen Beagin has one of the freshest voices I've read in years - funny, wise, whip-smart and compassionate. I tore through Pretend I'm Dead with a deep sense ofxa0 affection for all of its beautifully flawed characters and their bittersweet lives." -- Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins and All Grown Up" Pretend I’m Dead is funny, weird, disturbing, and just a touch magical. Mona, our main character, is such fabulous company, even when she wants everyone in her life to leave her alone. Jen Beagin’s novel will stare you down, mesmerize you, and dare you to laugh." -- Annie Hartnett, author of Rabbit Cake"With her droll humor and hilarious (but also earnest) observations, the 24-year-old narrator of Pretend I’m Dead had us hooked from page one. Mona gets by cleaning houses; in her free time, she hands out clean needles to heroin junkies. She is adrift; a dreamer without the fuel to make her dreams real. Pretend I’m Dead follows Mona as she moves to a new city, through a few relationships. But reciting the plot doesn’t do the book justice. Glide through Mona’s series of bad decisions with her – she’s a good companion." ― Refinery 29, a Best Book of 2018 "Beagin's work has been compared to Denis Johnson, which is high praise indeed, and totally deserved based on this smart, funny, darkly profound debut." ― Nylon Jen Beaginxa0holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a Whiting Award in fiction. Her first novel Pretend I’m Dead was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and Vacuum in the Dark was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. She is also the author of Big Swiss . She lives in Hudson, New York.

Features & Highlights

  • From the Whiting Award-winning author of
  • Pretend I’m Dead
  • and one of the most exhilarating new voices in fiction, a new hilarious, edgy, and brilliant one-of-a-kind novel about a cleaning lady named Mona and her struggles to move forward in life.
  • Mona is twenty-six and cleans houses for a living in Taos, New Mexico. She moved there mostly because of a bad boyfriend—a junkie named Mr. Disgusting, long story—and her efforts to restart her life since haven’t exactly gone as planned. For one thing, she’s got another bad boyfriend. This one she calls Dark, and he happens to be married to one of Mona’s clients. He also might be a little unstable. Dark and his wife aren’t the only complicated clients on Mona’s roster, either. There’s also the Hungarian artist couple who—with her addiction to painkillers and his lingering stares—reminds Mona of troubling aspects of her childhood, and some of the underlying reasons her life had to be restarted in the first place. As she tries to get over the heartache of her affair and the older pains of her youth, Mona winds up on an eccentric, moving journey of self-discovery that takes her back to her beginnings where she attempts to unlock the key to having a sense of home in the future. The only problems are Dark and her past. Neither is so easy to get rid of. A constantly surprising, laugh-out-loud funny novel about an utterly unique woman dealing with some of the most universal issues in America today,
  • Vacuum in the Dark
  • is an unforgettable, astonishing read from one of the freshest voices in fiction today.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(63)
★★★★
20%
(42)
★★★
15%
(32)
★★
7%
(15)
★
28%
(58)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Couldn't put it down

Had me hooked from page one. This book made me laugh out loud, disturbed me, made me melancholy, but mostly is memorable because Mona is sticking around inside of my head the way few characters have done. I find myself looking at things through Mona's eyes, while admiring her wit and intelligence and mourning her losses and self-deceptions. I'd read Jen Beagin's earlier book, "Pretend I'm Dead" when it came out a few years ago, and really really enjoyed it, but I think I *might* prefer this one. (I'm going to re-read her first to decide). Usually the sophomore effort leaves you wishing the writer had stopped at one. Not so here. Something about it really got to me. For lovers of great characters, who aren't afraid to feel some uncomfortable feelings, this gets my highest recommendation. And yes, that cliche is really true, could not put it down, hauled it around (ordered the actual dead-tree book!) everywhere, read in line, wanted to read it on my commute...love her voice and can't wait to see what Jen Beagin writes next. More Mona!? I'll take it.
13 people found this helpful
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Beagin Has Talent but She Takes a Wrong Turn

Jen Beagin has all the potential in the world as a humorist, just a hair beneath the stellar career of Dorothy Parker.

Who else would feature a cleaning lady as her protagonist, give her a biting wit, and include an invisible friend named Terry who also functions as a therapist of sorts? Mona also likes to rename people, including her mother, whom she calls Clare. Clare isn't even her real first name. She also acquires a Ford Fairlane, which she calls Maxine.

Mona has a problem with men. For instance, she goes to work for a blind woman who's married to a jerk who insists Rose, the blind woman, and he have an open relationship, which makes it okay for him to hustle Mona. Mona calls this guy, Dark; she has an attractive for bad boys. Eventually she escapes this relationship and begins another with Kurt who inherits a hotel. It doesn't take long before Mona is cleaning all the rooms. But Kurt is by far the best man she's been involved with. She's willing to put out on their first date, but he wants to get to know her first. She thinks he must have a small penis.

That's the problem I had with the book. It reminded me of FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY; there's enough material and oddities involved in being a cleaning lady to fill a very funny book without the obsession with sex. She even has unhealthy thoughts about her mother.

Then there's the lack of enough backstory. We know Mona had a terrible childhood and young adulthood. She spent eight years in an institution. We get a hint that was about cutting herself. She still has moments when she wants to cut herself. She was also given up for adoption, but even that's not really formal. We know Clare liked to drink and her grandfather was a perv, so that might have had something to do with it.

The ending is also confusing. We know the Kurt relationship is too good to be true due to her penchant for the bad boys, but we're not sure if she suddenly and miraculously sees the error of her ways.
8 people found this helpful
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Funny at First; Bizarre

I received this book free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Scribner. It will be available to the public February 26, 2019.

The cover grabbed my attention right away since I like sassy working class fiction. I haven’t read the author’s first book, but this one doesn’t rely on back story, so that is no problem.

The promotional blurb says this is laugh-out-loud funny, and it did make me laugh out loud right away. The protagonist Mona is a housecleaner, and as she is wiping down the various surfaces in the bathroom, she comes across a human turd on a soap dish. The hell? But she resolves not to say anything about it, because she tells us once you mention it, they win. I howled with laughter. This is great stuff. Every now and then she tosses in a cleaning tip, and for some reason it works with the narrative. Maybe it’s because she already uses such an eccentric style that it seems consistent with the rest of the story.

As the first of the book’s four sections moves forward, she recollects the oddball things that she’s found while cleaning other people’s homes, and then we see the reward she gives herself at the end, after several hours of cleaning a large, expensive home: she paws through the residents’ clothing, selects some, and tries it on. She photographs herself in their clothes, and she also photographs herself mostly nude with their more remarkable possessions.

But one day she is interrupted in this ritual by the homeowner, and a truly bizarre relationship develops which includes his wife as well, and just like that we moved out of my comfort zone, but I promised to read and review this thing, so I forged onward.

I knew this would be edgy humor when I requested the galley, and perhaps I should have read between the lines a little more thoroughly. The narrative contains a goodly amount of explicit sexual content—much of it twisted--not to mention a rape that Mona recounts, a scarring episode from her past. But in all of it, I don’t see any character development to speak of. The plot seems like more of a framework that’s been constructed in order to contain the various bits of humor that the author wants to include. And here, I also have to wonder why, why, why would anyone include the horrific suicide of a family member in an otherwise raunchily funny book? It was unexpected and made my gut flip over, the snide things she thinks about how the couple has dealt with the death of their daughter, the disposition of the ashes. Once you have read something you can’t unread it, and in all honesty I won’t read anything by this writer again.

At the same time, there are readers that loved her first book and I’ll bet you a dollar that they will love this one too. It bears the hallmark of a cult classic. I have no doubt that many readers will love it, but I do not.

Recommended to readers that read and enjoyed the author’s first book.
6 people found this helpful
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A roller coaster ride of a story.

My Thoughts: I hadn’t realized that Vacuum in the Dark was a sequel until just before I started reading it, but can honestly say that didn’t matter. The story of Mona, a house cleaner in Taos, New Mexico stood just fine on its own. Mona’s quirkiness was very appealing. Her hobby was photography and she specialized in taking funny pictures of herself in her client’s homes, wearing their clothing, holding their possessions. So, yes, Mona was a bit of an unusual young woman, and her clients were also some VERY colorful individuals. The book only has four chapters and the first two focused on Mona and a couple of her most odd clients. I thoroughly enjoyed these chapters, even as I was saying to myself, “Wait! What?”

In the third chapter, Mona went to visit her mother and step-father in Florida, and that’s where the book faltered for me. Her parents and everything that happened in Florida, just didn’t have the draw of the earlier stories. I grew bored as Mona seemed to lose her edge. By the fourth chapter, she’d grown almost pathetic, yet somehow my interest picked up just a little. In the end, Vacuum in the Dark was just too much of a roller coaster ride for me. By the second half, I just wanted off.
5 people found this helpful
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LOVED IT!

“Vacuum in the Dark” is fresh, strange, hilarious and very moving. It’s not for everyone; she’s not Anne Tyler or the least bit housewife-y. She’s one of those people documenting “out there” existences and the aftershocks of life in the America wasteland where people are trying to get through the great pains of modern life—abuse, addiction, violence—and have bruised, numbed hearts. But I am so taken with this book. I loved it, though some may find it not their thing. (If this is you, don’t sit by me.) It reminded me a bit of Dennis Johnson’s “Jesus’s Son” or a more hardcore, ravaged Lorrie Moore. It also made me remember the movie “The Secretary” with Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Other writers work this road but few so affectingly. The main character is a cleaning woman whose scars from childhood neglect and abuse are deeper and more complicated than we first realize or she understands. She is just doing her best to keep going in this world and the odd, strange, lonely way of living she has designed around her limitations is sad but also creative. She’s found her own sometimes bizarre rituals of survival. Her preoccupations are fascinating. The only intimacy she can tolerate, beyond sexual encounters that reconnect her to her dark past, is connecting with people through rummaging through their houses and private things. If she is going to find salvation and work out her pain and what she can’t clean away it will be through art. Gradually she bewitches and in her way inspires the reader. She has a real heroism as she tries to reclaim her life and, like her creator, has an absolutely piercing eye. I totally capitulated to her when she compared one of her clients lizard-killing cats to the Manson family and my affection for her grew from there with leaps and bounds. She is an unintentional artist and her lack of ambition about it and her drive to do it because it is necessary is one of the many, many interesting things about this novel. I love the motion of outlaw artists working outside the commercial space and world of noise and hype.
The writing is spare and feels effortless. Like the heroine it doesn’t call undue attention to itself but hovers on the brink of danger.
There are some great characters—a mad, hurt guy called Dark who loves her; a woman named Lena who I wanted more of—and the portraits of the “heroine’s” mother and stepfather are amazing. I am kind of in awe of Jen Beagin. I am so glad she’s out there and am running backwards at a rapid speed to find her first book.
4 people found this helpful
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Thank you, Jen Beagin.

I have no words.
4 people found this helpful
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Worthy sequel

Beagin’s debut which I read back when it appeared on Netgalley was quite something. Her darkly humorous take on the life of a genuinely singular cleaning lady was a strangely pleasurable read. And one I’d never imagine getting a sequel. And yet…here we are. And the cleaning lady is still at it, vacuuming in the dark, which is not only an occasionally apt job description, but a nice metaphor for her life, no less messed up, confusing or confused since the last time, despite tucking a few more years under the apron’s belt. More places to clean, still no personal boundaries, resolving in bizarre relationships and attachments. This novel is structured as a quartet of sequential and almost self contained stories (which also do a nice job of refreshing the first book for the reader), each one a different situation, a different environment, a different love story in a way, from romantic to parental. Essentially what it does is peel off the layers and Beagin’s protagonist is one odd onion. Or maybe it’s more like the nesting dolls, each one stranger than the last. Either way, the author dips far enough into the past to explain certain present behaviors and tendencies, but after a while it does get slightly frustrating…and while explanations might be provided, there doesn’t seem to be any closure or changes or maturity. The cleaning lady stays consistently quirky and odd and, while I appreciate consistency in real life, fictional ones are usually improved by transformations. Mind you, Beagin’s created a genuinely terrific original character, but how long can you hit that piñata and appreciate all the weirdness that emerges? That sort of thing tends to get old. But yet the book is such an entertaining and funny read. There’s no reason for it to exist really, but for the author’s reluctance to leave the character behind or possibly due to the fact that both books are quite short and should have been one long one to begin with, but it’s fun while it lasts and I’d probably even check out the further adventures of the cleaning lady if the author comes up with any. The book’s ending certainly makes you think she might. Much like a thing cleaned over and over again no matter how well it doesn’t quite have the luster and freshness of the original. Fun read though, for cleaning tips, for weird love stories and clever badinage with imaginary friends and all that. Easily done in one sitting too.
2 people found this helpful
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Quirky! Hilarious! Unconventional!

I like this book. It’s quirky, hilarious and unconventional. It took me awhile to get into it but I like it. It’s very funny. Advance reader copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
1 people found this helpful
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Electrolux, Terry Gross, creepy men

A house cleaner in her mid-20s quizzes a potential bedmate. Do you have a vacuum? Upright or canister? What kind? Electrolux. OK, you can sleep with me. (I'm paraphrasing.)

She converses in her head with radio host Terry Gross. She's drawn to dark, twisted men and women, exits before terrible damage is done, but she's scathed each time. She's an artist but won't admit it to herself.

When she visits her mother, a recovering addict, she begins to understand and even forgive the terrible things that happened long ago. She even adjusts when she understands how much her mother loves her icky stepdad more than herself. She finds that her stepfather is still creepy but ultimately decent.

The author conveys these insights without saying them so plainly. It's more delicately written than that, with more curious uncovering than big revelations.

Mona is an unreliable narrator, and that throws the reader off balance in an interesting way. The man who excites her so much smells like a freshly sharpened pencil to her. Later, another character says he smells like an old goat. It calls Mona's perspective into question. That's a good thing to me. Whose vision is clear, especially when a person is a little bit self-destructive and turned on? I like the layers of insight, the nuances.

I listened to this as an audio book. The reader used bland voices for these interesting, strange characters. Ex-addict Mom in particular sounded too refined. I could just hear her old cigarette/alcohol voice. The reader could not.

I didn't read the first book by Jen Beagin. Apparently this is a sequel. It holds up on its own.
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Not A Good Read

No plot. Most of the story was disgusting with disgusting characters. One of the worst books I’ve read. The ending made no sense. A waste of time and money.

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