"Fair warning for 2023: If I run into you and I know you like movies, I''m going to ask you if you''ve read this brilliant book." --Erin Keane, Salon''s "Favorite Books of 2022" "The novelist and critic weaves together scene-by-scene commentary on the 1987 sci-fi horror film ''Predator'' with personal recollections and musings as he contemplates masculinity, fandom and their relationship to violence." -- The New York Times Book Review "Written in loose-jointed yet elegant prose that guiltily savors Predator''s pleasures, Monson''s subtle, twisty appreciations and critiques . transform the movie into a penetrating commentary on the contradictions of manhood. Movie buffs will want to snap this up." -- Publishers Weekly [ Predator is] unlike anything I''ve ever read." --Wyatt Mason, Harper''s "In a country where incomprehensible, violent tragedies are becoming commonplace, Monson finds clarity processing the new American way against the backdrop of his favorite movie. Monson finds a cracking pace that imbues [ Predator ] with an improbable resonance, at once lowbrow and mesmerizingly cogent.

An unlikely treatise on manhood with the charm of a late-night movie marathon." --Kirkus Reviews "[Predator] is an extremely unexpected book in every way . Totally delightful." --Dan Kois, Slate ''s Culture Gabfest "A vibrant piece of social criticism that seeks to connect the dots between autobiography and something larger: the way an artifact or a piece of art can get inside us, shaping not only personality but also perspective, a way of thinking about and moving through the world. In pretty much every way that matters, it''s an effort that succeeds." --David Ulin, Alta Journal "I haven''t seen Predator or any other action movie, for that matter--am I a man?--but this is my favorite book of Ander Monson''s. It''s the most sustained, the most lucid, the most serious (the funniest), the most complicit, the most heartbreaking/discomfiting, the most ''relevant'' to our ''moment.'' Quite simply, a great book.

" --David Shields "A maze of riffs with the Predator franchise in the center, always allusive and illusive. One of the more fascinating and eccentric books I''ve read this decade." --Jeff VanderMeer "This is a book about the movie Predator and also a book about the country and the era and the culture that produced the movie Predator . It''s a book about that time and about this time right now, and many points in between. This is a book filled with ideas and also an intensely personal book, one that only Ander Monson could have written--with his wit, honesty and considerable powers of insight. Heavy and light, serious and funny, and above all deeply original." --Charles Yu ooks I''ve read this decade." --Jeff VanderMeer "This is a book about the movie Predator and also a book about the country and the era and the culture that produced the movie Predator .

It''s a book about that time and about this time right now, and many points in between. This is a book filled with ideas and also an intensely personal book, one that only Ander Monson could have written--with his wit, honesty and considerable powers of insight. Heavy and light, serious and funny, and above all deeply original." --Charles Yu ooks I''ve read this decade." --Jeff VanderMeer "This is a book about the movie Predator and also a book about the country and the era and the culture that produced the movie Predator . It''s a book about that time and about this time right now, and many points in between. This is a book filled with ideas and also an intensely personal book, one that only Ander Monson could have written--with his wit, honesty and considerable powers of insight. Heavy and light, serious and funny, and above all deeply original.

" --Charles Yu ooks I''ve read this decade." --Jeff VanderMeer "This is a book about the movie Predator and also a book about the country and the era and the culture that produced the movie Predator . It''s a book about that time and about this time right now, and many points in between. This is a book filled with ideas and also an intensely personal book, one that only Ander Monson could have written--with his wit, honesty and considerable powers of insight. Heavy and light, serious and funny, and above all deeply original." --Charles Yu of insight. Heavy and light, serious and funny, and above all deeply original." --Charles Yu.