Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
    The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
    The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

    Written by Christopher Moore

    Narrated by Oliver Wyman

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a colossal sea beast named Steve with, shall we say, a thing for explosive oil tanker trucks. Suddenly, morose Pine Cove turns libidinous and is hit by a mysterious crime wave, and a beleaguered constable has to fight off his own gonzo appetites to find out what's wrong and what, if anything, to do about it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateAug 4, 2009
    ISBN9780061902581
    Author

    Christopher Moore

    Christopher Moore is the author of eighteen previous novels, including Razzmatazz, Shakespeare for Squirrels, Noir, Secondhand Souls, Sacré Bleu, Fool, and Lamb. He lives in San Francisco, California.

    More audiobooks from Christopher Moore

    Related to The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Across The Whited Fields

      Oct 13, 2019

      In a twilight streeta small girl laughing. The red and yellow flowersprofuse, inhale the air. We want to hold your name,Polly, dancing in the rain Polly, skipping down the street.Sometimes the world bequeaths then takes away the one to whomou

      14 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Life After Death

      May 27, 2022

      Life After Death
      14 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      Letting Go of Leon

      May 18, 2020

      Letting Go of Leon
      5 min read

    • Article

      In the Event

      Sep 1, 2019

      In the Event
      28 min read

    • Article

      Losing The Plot

      Jun 19, 2022

      Our bathroom had dark-blue wallpaper with birds and flowers on it, like the wallpaper in an English country house. The paintwork was putty-coloured, with a putty-coloured bath shelf that Dad had built for Mum. As well as room for Mum’s mug of Nescafé

      9 min read

    • Article

      Ever Meet Lemmy

      Oct 13, 2023

      Ever Meet Lemmy
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Sack of Silence

      Sep 8, 2020

      “WAIT TILL I TURNT HIS OFF. NOW.” “That noise. Whatever is it?” “The Hoover was running.” “How’s that?” “I said, I was running the vacuum.” “Not that. Outside. Listen.” Rosie leaned over the banister. “Oh, it’s the bee, dear.” “Bee nothing. A thousan

      7 min read

    • Article

      HOUSE OF horror

      Jan 21, 2020

      HOUSE OF horror
      4 min read

    • Article

      “Really?”

      Jun 2, 2022

      “Really?”
      6 min read

    • Article

      Prevarication Jones

      May 1, 2019

      Prevarication Jones
      16 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Tim Lane

      Dec 8, 2021

      We stopped at the Topaz Internment Camp, where my wife’s family was held during World War II, near the tiny town of Delta, Utah. We found the apocalyptic remnants of one of our country’s great shames. The post A Year in Reading: Tim Lane appeared fi

      7 min read

    • Article

      There’s No Place Like Home: An Artist Reconnects to the Whispers of Her Past

      Apr 7, 2023

      Estimated reading time: 13 minutes — I would be remiss in telling you how two suburbanites found home at our farm, ‘Oakhaven’, without first sharing our motives. There were a few. We had been watching the steady decline of the small towns we love fo

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Nugrybauti

      Apr 24, 2019

      Nugrybauti
      8 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2022

      Table Talk
      10 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Jan 5, 2023

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

    4.5/5

    146 ratings63 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A very funny and weird romantic novel. I liked Molly and Theo's love story but absolutely loved the relatability of Gabe (Yes, I usually enjoy the supporting characters more. Big surprise.) Overall a very fun and witty read.
    • 4/5
      Christopher Moore has a funny way about him. He creates some fantastic characters who end up in unworldly situations. I would recommend any Christopher Moore book to anyone willing to listen. If someone enjoys the likes of Tom Holt or Douglas Adams they will love Moore's writing.The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is not by any means one of Moore's best books, but it is still worth the read. Contained within these pages is a lizard who can take on the form of a mobile home, a bartender who is more like the bionic woman than human, a blues singer who gets the blues knocked off of him and a Stepford wife who kills herself or did she?
    • 4/5
      This was my favorite of the three Pine Cove books. Here we get what Moore does best — a colorful cast of characters mired in an extremely unusual situation. In this case, there’s a mysterious sea beast in town, making the newly un-drugged residents of Pine Cove somewhat… amorous. Constable Theo Crowe knows *something* is going on, but he’s not too sure what. All he knows is that he doesn’t believe housewife Bess Leander killed herself, and it’s up to him to find out who really killed her. The only one who really has an idea of what is going on is mostly-out-of-her-mind ex-B-movie-queen Molly Michon, and who’s going to believe her? This is the Moore I first enjoyed with A Dirty Job.
    • 3/5
      2.5

      You have to be high to read this.
      Or drunk.
      Or both. Yes, both would be best. Otherwise, the sheer amount of exaggerations would make you crazy.

      With its title alone, you have to assume you'd have to suspend your disbelief completely. I don't mind that at all. It is supposed to be a silly book after all. But you don't get any respite from all the exaggerations. It's just goes on an on, one crazy situation or a person after another. After a while one gets tired of it.

      I wonder if I am too serious to appreciate the type of humour in this book.
    • 4/5
      Rating: 3.5* of fiveThe Publisher Says: The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a colossal sea beast named Steve with, shall we say, a thing for explosive oil tanker trucks. Suddenly, morose Pine Cove turns libidinous and is hit by a mysterious crime wave, and a beleaguered constable has to fight off his own gonzo appetites to find out what's wrong and what, if anything, to do about it.My Review: Am I too old for this humor to make me do more than chuckle quietly and without conviction? Has my curmudgeonly mask become my face?I'd say an instant yes and move on, light of heart and wreathed in smiles, were it not for this:I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation.Yep.So up from the Mount of Despairing Good-Enough books! Yay, right? Um. I think, though, it's past time to take a flensing knife and cut to the heart of the Moore Mystique.Let me know what y'all find. I ain't got so much as a sniff at a clue. Why does Good-Enough transmogrify into sales and gales of laughter?! Quick, someone post an excuse for laughing above the level a work deserves, I'm afraid my face will freeze this way!
    • 4/5
      Christopher Moore never disappoints me. The story was fun, with hilarious characters, and a happy ending (for most of the characters).
    • 5/5
      It took me two tries to get into the story, but once I did, the book was awesome.
    • 5/5
      Lots of fun! "She's not Amish." I didn't say was Amish, I just said I heard that. I figured she wan't Amish when I saw the blener in the kitchen. Amish Don't believe in blenders, do they?" What's a Mennonite?" Vance asked. "Amish with blenders."
    • 4/5
      Classic Christopher Moore. This book is Moore at his best. It is filled with quirky characters in bizarrely unbelievable plots, but it is done in a way that makes you happily plow through it to see how the madness will unfold.
    • 3/5
      I don't know how you would characterize this novel... maybe wacky fantasy? I started off pretty much hating the story and the writing, however, I found some parts that were okay. The single bit of hype on the cover:"If there's a funnier writer out there, step forward." – PlayboyNot my style of humor apparently; I don't think anyone could swing a dead cat and NOT hit a half dozen funnier writers. A light chuckle here and there, or sly smile when reading some passage, but it was more like silly as in "bored silly."I toughed it out and finally started liking the characters a little bit, and started liking the story a little bit. Parts were good, but a lot of it wasn't. I almost bumped it up to 3-stars because I liked a lot of the underlying messages and themes, but I really thought it should have been better rather than just weird.
    • 4/5
      Very funny with an excellent narrator (Audiobook).
    • 5/5
      I've heard many good things about Christopher Moore, but mostly I've heard that I'd love his sense of humor. In life, I take two things seriously: The health and security of my family. Everything else is fair game. If you can riff on religion, politics, sex and the overall human condition, in a thought-provoking, sarcastic manner, you will find a friend in me. For this reason, I would love to just sit down and have a conversation with Moore. I'm sure we'd laugh ourselves stupid.

      The Characters: A pothead constable, an aging b-movie actress, a psychiatrist, a biologist, a blues man, a painter, a pharmacist with a sexual preference for sea life and a barkeep that's more metal and silicone than human, make up the cast of The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. And those are just the good guys. Somehow, Moore makes each of these people flesh and blood real. I even felt bad for the fish-f***ing druggist. I love well drawn characters, no matter how outlandish, and Moore delivers by the bucket-load.

      Now, I didn't read the synopsis of this book because someone warned me that Harper (Moore's publisher) tends to ruin some of the funnier moments with their blurbs, so I went into this book blind, aside from the title of course. When Steve the Sea Beast finds his first lover around page 60, I almost lost my mind laughing. Which brings me to the synopsis. Harper actually covers that scene in the blurb, so I was very happy I skipped the spoiler.

      There's far too much going on in this book to cover even a quarter of it here, but I will say Moore is now one of my favorite authors. One of the other warnings I was given before reading this book was that The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove was his most lackluster work to date, so if I enjoyed this book, I'd love his other stuff. We'll see about that. All I know is that I've never laughed so hard while reading. Ever. Period. The last forty pages of this novel had my sides hurting.

      The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a far-fetched, foul-mouthed, filthy-minded pedestrian, walking the streets of the Land of Make Believe. If you like your humor lewd and crude, but interlaced with witty social commentary, you will adore Christopher Moore.

      E.
    • 4/5
      Hysterical! Molly is hands-down my favourite Moore character and her "adventure" with this beast had me in stitches.
    • 4/5
      Pine Cove is like many small coastal towns. Too busy for words during the hot summer months and barebones during the winter. What sets Pine Cove apart is local wildlife, the townspeople. With a pothead constable, terminatorisque barkeep, money hungry psychiatrist, a pharmacist with fetishes you can't discuss in public and more of the population on anti-depressants than a rehab for the rich and famous, it's no wonder things get a little strange once in a while. But, when a sex starved, voracious sea beast follows a paranoid Bluesman into town things are bound to get even weirder than ever in Pine Cove.When I started reading this book I wasn't really sure if I would like it. In fact, it was a little slow going at first. However, once I began to get more into the eccentricities of the townspeople and the sea beast it became more interesting. And once Steve got that odd notion into his head about the fuel tanker, well, that was it for me. Luckily people don't usually die of aphyxiation from laughing too much! I really did like this book. Although the story may have dragged just a little in some places it was filled with enough hilarious one liners and punchlines to make up the difference. I loved all the different characters and took a particular shine to Theo, the pothead constable with a heart of gold.If you aren't afraid of a little raunchy humor and love to laugh I would definitely recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      After one of her patients appears to have committed suicide, psychiatrist Valerie Riordan decides to take all of her patients off of anti-depressantssimultaneously. This, combined with the appearance of a 5,000 year old sea monster named Steve, and a secret methamphetamine lab brings wacky mayhem tothe town of Pine Grove. Add to the mix a schizophrenic former pulp movie actress, a pothead sheriff, a blues musician on the run from his past, and a burgeoning cult that decides to worship the sea monster, and you have a fine mix of zany humor and deft social commentary. This is a fine example of Moore's off-the-wall humor where nothing is sacred and everything is fair game. If you are looking for something off the beaten path and funny, this is a fine introduction to Christopher Moore's unique brand of storytelling.
    • 4/5
      Cute and silly—just what I needed.
    • 3/5
      If you like Carl Hiaasen you should give Christopher Moore a try, while Hiaasen writes quirky mysteries set in Florida, Moore writes quirky fantasy/urban fantasy set in California. There similarities for me are the characters, these guys come up with the oddest set of characters.

      I liked this book, but prefer the Fool, Love Story and Grim Reaper series.

      I felt dumb not realizing sooner that the bestiality loving druggist would picture into the final solution
    • 3/5
      Christopher Moore is, as always, a genius when it comes to the absurd and warped sense of humor that I enjoy oh-so-much. Who else could give us a plot that includes all of the following: a former B movie starlet who still lives the life of her most famous role as Kendra: Warrior Babe of the Wasteland, a sea beast with a vendetta against a wayward bluesman, a psychologist who decides to put the entire town on placebo anti-depressants instead of the real deal, a pharmacist with a fish fetish (yes, that's right), meth labs and drug dealers, interspecies love, and occasional chapters told from the point of view of a labrador retriever named Skinner? This is not for everyone--serious people need not apply. The plot is wacky and unbelievable; in other words, vintage Moore. While I really enjoyed the book and laughed often, the only reason I gave it 3 stars is that, when compared with his other books, I didn't like it quite as much as Bloodsucking Fiends and Fluke (Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings). However, the novel is well worth the time of anyone who already enjoys Moore or is discovering him for the first time.
    • 4/5
      Funny, sexy, and extremely odd. Great for readers who are looking for some brain candy and like, Terry Pratchet, Carl Hiasan and Tom Robins
    • 4/5
      Those who enjoy Christopher Moore's irreverent take on the world will enjoy this book. It's a solid story about a prehistoric shape shifting lizard who messes with the chemical receptors in animals' brains to draw them to it to feed, and the woman who loved it. Told from the perspective of several characters (including the Lust Lizard itself, or Steve, as he was also known), the story maintained a good momentum from start to finish. An enjoyable, light read.
    • 4/5
      I greatly enjoy the writing of CM. I would rate this book average for him, but still a very fun read if you enjoy quirky humor.
    • 4/5
      This is the fifth book I have read by Christopher Moore. It was a good choice after reading Blood Meridian, as it cleansed my system of the willies precipitated by the deep philosophical ruminations so often sponge-bathed in the sweat-distilled bloodstains upon the dry desert floor, or on the equally weatherworn dusters of those among us who would kill in the face of opportunity and not think twice.But enough of such prior ill vibrations. This particular book, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, is a typical offering by Christopher Moore, a giant among current pontificators of all things gonzo. Take one part psychiatrist with an overdose in conscience, the town constable whose "Sneaky Pete" and victory garden are his only best friends, another part the local pharmacist with an overly eager taste for the cetacean variety, a mega-mechanized bar owner itching to grease her own wheels (literally speaking), and an aging actress past her prime of defending the Outland for aspiring Warrior Babes the world over. That should be about enough, except for the pinch of a Nat'chal bluesman looking for work, and a dash of gigantic sea beast looking for love being the fuse for havoc erupting in the unsuspecting hamlet of Pine Cove.As one can tell, this is a tale where the sum of its parts is truly greater than the whole, or however the phrase goes. Even Moore describes this in the prologue, whereby Pine Cove serves as the powderkeg ignited by three seemingly separate, mutually exclusive occurrences . Such is the style of Moore, a writer who with a talent for both the whimsical and noir can consistently whip up something so humorous, bizarre and at the same time strangely believable, that a sloth of a reader like myself will finish the novel faster than a shark smelling newly dumped chum in the ocean. I get too caught up in the parts to even hypothesize how the whole will conclude itself; yet it always seems to happen, and it's just a fun time floating throughout the whole experience.There is a bit of cultural commentary treading just below the surface in this story. The plot revolves around drugs, and our decisions and indecisions to take them (or not), whether they be prescribed, OTC, or illegally obtained. It underscores the grandioseness of the sea beast's shenanigans in this nutty town, but Moore does pose the scenario, from multiple points of view.I'm not sure it's my favorite book from Moore, but it's every bit enjoyable as his other books I've read. Quite funny, quite weird, quite entertaining.
    • 5/5
      OK any book that has a monster names Steve can not be all bad. This auther never gets boring and you can not help but snicker as you read along.
    • 4/5
      Not my favorite of his books, but good fun to read.
    • 2/5
      This book is very strange. It starts out innocent enough, but just spirals out of control. It's like the author wrote the first half of the book sober, and the second half, stoned out of his fucking mind. Because the second half is just plain bat-shit crazy.

      The story starts out nice and simple. A new sheriff comes to town. Greetings all around. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. But then, naked people keep showing up everywhere. Fucking in the park. Fucking on the sidewalk. Fucking on the counter of the local diner, while the new sheriff is trying to drink his fucking coffee.

      It's very distracting, all these people fucking everywhere. You just can't get any goddamn work done. The fucking has got to stop, I tell yaz! So, the new sheriff gets the local shrink to prescribe some pills, to calm down the fucking hilarity. That'll work, right? Not so much.

      And then there's this huge lizard. A literal lust lizard the size of a goddamn T-Rex, that just shows up out of nowhere. It feeds on people's lust. Well, that is to say, it is the one causing all the people to fuck all the time. It sends out some signal, or pheromone, that makes people all horny and shit. And, somehow those signals draw the people to the lust lizard. To commune naked, and offer themselves up to the lizard as sacrifices, or some bullshit.

      See? Mr. Moore was smoking some good crack when he wrote the last bit of this book. It's fucking crazy. It doesn't make any goddamn sense. But I guess, at least it was a tad bit amusing. Because of all the crazy naked fucking people. And the fact that they named the big lust lizard 'Steve'. Because apparently, it looked like a Steve.

      It really cracked me up when they tried to reason with the lust lizard. "Come on, Steve... Don't eat that guy. That guy's cool. Eat that other guy, over there. He's a fucking asshole." Comedy gold, I tell ya.
    • 5/5
      Multiple POVs, each chapter with the name of the POV character as title, although the dog's thoughts also showed up. Pothead constable, sea monsters, aging barbarian film princess, corrupt sheriff, murder, drugs, sex, blues, booze, and explosions in a small California tourist town. Oh, and sex, too. Yes. Yes! Hi-larious. I love this bit of description, particularly the second sentence: “Catfish Jefferson put down his National steel guitar and picked up the two-gallon pickle jar that held his tips. Dollar bills spilled over the top, change skated in the bottom, and here and there in the middle fives and tens struggled for air. There was even a twenty down there, and Catfish dug in after it like a kid going for a Cracker Jack prize."
    • 2/5
      I've been waiting to find another Christopher Moore book as hilarious as Lamb. This isn't it. I returned it to the library unfinished, I just couldn't push through it.
    • 5/5
      This is probably my favorite one of his books. Fun and funny the whole way thru
    • 5/5
      I struggle with minor mental health issues. I loved the slightly cracked denizens of this town and the therapist(s). I want Moore to write more from here - I don't care for his San Francisco vampires nearly as much.
    • 5/5
      In the small town of Pine Cove in northern California, September is usually a pretty laid back time of year. The tourists are mostly gone and the inhabitants settle in for an uneventful autumn and quiet winter. But this year, three unusual things happened in Pine Cove that changed September. Not big things by Big City standards, but enough to knock the status quo cock-eyed: a tiny, barely noticeable leak opened in a cooling pipe at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant 40 miles to the south; Mavis Sand hired a Blues singer to play through the winter at the Head of the Slug Saloon; and Bess Leander, housewife and mother of two, hung herself.The tiny trace of radioactive water wafting along the ocean's floor tickled the nose of a sleeping 5000 year old sea monster (who had once eaten a Russian nuclear sub and remembers the "buzz" he got from it) and he is roused from his slumber to follow the tantalizing aroma, hungry and very horny after his long nap. At just that time, the village's psychiatrist, Dr. Val Riordan, develops a case of the guilts, thinking that her penchant for writing antidepressant prescriptions as the cure-all for her patients might have been part of the cause of Bess's sudden suicide, and makes a deal with the local pharmacist to switch all her patients to placebos for a while and start having actual sessions with them, just to see what happens. The sea monster exudes a subliminal signal that tittilates the libido looking for a mate, and between that and the townsfolk's normal libidos kicking back in after being squelched by the Prozac for so long, suddenly the people are behaving like sex starved teenagers after prom. And watching it all is the perplexed Theophilus Crowe, a constantly stoned old hippie hired as Constable by an unscrupulous county sheriff who has shady dealings on the side. Throw in a motley assortment of townsfolk (like the schizophrenic former B-movie star, Molly Michon and crusty bartender Mavis Sand) and you've got a recipe for a very funny story.This book was a sheer delight to read and I caught myself chuckling throughout the whole thing. Sorry to see this one end. It gets a high 5 from me. Very entertaining.