He has everything he needs. He just can’t stop wanting more. A good job. A beautiful home. A steady relationship. Enough money to indulge almost any passing desire. He is intelligent, rational, and remarkably good at seeing how ridiculous other people’s obsessions can be. His own are another matter. Every new fixation follows the same pattern: curiosity, research, comparisons, anticipation. Then comes the purchase. The rush. And, sooner or later, the familiar emptiness that follows. Until one day, he sees a monkey. At first, it is nothing more than an absurd thought. Then a curiosity. Then, somehow, a real possibility. And when Otis enters his life, this time he hasn’t bought something he can lose interest in and shove into a drawer. He has brought home something alive, unpredictable, demanding—and impossible to control. What seemed like the most original desire of his life begins to reshape everything around him: his home, his routines, his friendships, and his relationship with the woman beside him. More than anything, Otis forces him to face the question he has spent years avoiding: Do we really want the things we desire… or are we addicted to the moment before we finally have them? Owning a Monkey is a sharp, ironic, and provocative novel about consumerism, appearances, dissatisfaction, and the endless human need to find something new to want.