Why read The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break?

Book cover of The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

Book description

Five thousand years out of the labyrinth, the Minotaur finds himself in the American South, living in a trailer park and working as a line cook at a steakhouse. No longer a devourer of human flesh, the Minotaur is a socially inept, lonely creature with very human needs. But over…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Maria Vale

Author

Five thousand years after leaving the labyrinth, the Minotaur has traded in a diet of virgins for a job as a cook at a North Carolina joint called Grub’s Rib, a casually cannibalistic reference that gives a sense of Sherrill’s dark humor. His life is punctuated by problems that are both conventional (he lives in a trailer park and pines for one of Grub’s waitresses) and un- (his horns are awkward in the tight confines of kitchen and trailer, his tongue makes speech difficult, his penmanship is disastrous). What makes the Minotaur so appealing is that unlike the mortals around…

From Maria's list on stories told by monsters.

Anne Holloway

Author

I found this in a second-hand bookstore in Wales – the title fascinated me, probably because of the Greek Myth connection! Once you suspend your disbelief and accept that a minotaur is working as a grill chef, it’s a wonderful story about the loneliness of an outsider, being an outcast, and how he finds love. A sad book though!

From Anne's list on lead you gently into the world of magic realism.

L. D. Colter

Author

I put off starting this novel, worried by the publisher's summary that it would be depressingly poignant along the lines of misfit stories like Edward Scissorhands or Flowers for Algernon but, while the author takes a sensitive look at the life of a creature trying to fit in, because the minotaur never feels self-pity, the book doesn't tap into that sadness that can come with being seen as different.

The literary minutiae of the minotaur's life and truths told about universal hopes and fears of any who doesn't neatly fit in are the heart of the book, though, and beautifully…

From L. D.'s list on mythology and folklore in modern fiction.