Review of The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

by Christopher Moore Author of Fluke and Lamb

Jan 6, 2009

Christopher Moore writes another fabulous story with The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. What happens when a psychiatrist takes an entire town off their antidepressants?

Christopher Moore offers readers another crazy adventure with The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. He asks an amazing question: what happens when an entire town comes off of their anti-depressants? The answer will only shock you. Compared to other Moore novels, it ranks higher than Fluke but lower than Lamb because of its lack of a serious message.

Pine Cove, California is a sleepy little town on the coast where eight out of ten people use anti-depressants. Why? Because the town's only psychiatrist becomes complacent in her job and hands out prescription drugs rather than actual treat her patients with therapy. It is not until a patient commits suicide that she actually regrets her actions and feels the need to send her patients through therapy. However, her one critical mistake is that she takes the entire town off their anti-depressants and puts them on placebos. In theory this might have worked, except the extreme drop in the town's hormone levels awakens a giant sea creature that wants nothing more than food and sex.

What happens next will shock even the most dedicated Moore fans. It takes Constable and resident marijuana grower Theophilus (Theo for short) and an aging C-movie action actress to figure out the problem and keep the sea creature from placing too much harm on the town and from getting harmed himself.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove falls in the second category. There is not a specific message in this book as there is in Lamb or in A Dirty Job. This, perhaps, could be considered one of the major flaws of the book. However, even Christopher Moore is entitled to write a purely imaginative book with no serious message.

Readers will love mellow Theo and his attempt to kick his marijuana habit. They will also love the sea creature, the likes of which rarely appears in fiction. This is a perfect summer read or just a book to pick up if you want to escape the drudge of the every day real world.

Moore, Christopher. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. HarperCollins, 1999. 304 pages. ISBN: 9780060735456

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