"The debut of an electric literary talent. Brilliantly quirky, often moving, always gorgeously told....Bravo for this fabulous American fiction!" --Chang-Rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Native Speaker

"A wonderful story collection that's as wide and rich and complex as the geography it spans." -- Ben Fountain, PEN/Hemingway award-winning author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera

"Tenorio is a deep and original writer, and Monstress is simply a beautiful book." --Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters

A luminous collection of heartbreaking, vivid, startling, and gloriously unique stories set amongst the Filipino-American communities of California and the Philippines, Monstress heralds the arrival of a breathtaking new talent on the literary scene: Lysley Tenorio. Already the worthy recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writer's Award, and a Stegner Fellowship, Tenorio brilliantly explores the need to find connections, the melancholy of isolation, and the sometimes suffocating ties of family in tales that range from a California army base to a steamy moviehouse in Manilla, to the dangerous false glitter of Hollywood.