Invisible Monsters can be a challenging read as the novel unfolds in a stream-of-consciousness format. Recollections of mostly past incidents are told from the vantage point of a mutilated woman that assumes several identities, such as Shannon McFarland, Daisy St. Patience, and Bubba-Joan, throughout the story. These personas are fabricated and given to her by another character, Brandy Alexander, who accompanies her throughout most of the novel.
The story begins on Evie Cottrell’s wedding day; as the ceremony commences, her house is currently being reduced to ash in a fierce fire. The narration continues with the disjoined sequence of events remembered: Evie has just shot Brandy and it is at this point that she decides to tell her backstory, recalling how she had first met Brandy. Here the narrator reveals her humble roots: she is a farmer’s daughter and came from a backwater rural community.
She begins to detail her resentment for Shane, her older brother. Her parents threw him out of their house when they learned that he had contracted gonorrhea from one of his gay lovers after having undergone a routine strep throat test in school. Not too long after that the narrator’s folks get a mysterious phone call, informing them that Shane has passed away because of HIV-AIDS complications. Her parents then respond to his death in a strange way: they become fanatical gay rights advocates. The Narrator then reasons that this is one of the major roots of her antipathy towards Shane: even posthumously he still gets all the attention from her parents that she dearly craved. In response to this, she pursues a modeling career where she feels she will get the attention she seeks.
The narrator meets up with Manus Kelley, a policeman, as she prepares to become a model. Eventually the two end up becoming a couple. While in modeling school she also encounters Evelyn Cottrell, who goes by the name “Evie.” Evie and Manus have an affair behind the narrator’s back; this act will serve as a catalyst for events later on in the novel. The narrator then tells of how she was disfigured: she is shot in the face--the bullet is of a particularly large caliber and her jaw is all but blown off completely--as she was driving down the highway. Miraculously she is able to make her way to a nearby hospital, saving her life.
The injury she sustains however ends her career as a model and all but renders her incapable of speech requiring her to undergo speech therapy. The therapist is a trans woman named Brandy Alexander. More than just teaching the narrator to speak again Brandy also instructs her to piece together a new life by living out a completely new, fully fabricated identity, complete with a new name. Brandy takes this even further, extending this concept of renaming as a coping mechanism even to people that she has known in her former life. Brandy dubs her Daisy St. Patience; which will be only one of the many new personas that will be used by the narrator.
Upon the narrator’s recovery Evie pleads with her to stay and live with her. Shortly after the narrator has moved in Evie tells her that she must leave for Cancun but tells her that she can stay home as long as she needs even though she is away. On the first night of her stay an assailant breaks into the house wielding a large kitchen knife. The assailant turns out to be Manus Kelley, the narrator’s boyfriend. It is worth noting that because of Brandy’s therapy and influence and the non-linear flow of events in story telling the Narrator has now begun referring to Manus as Seth. It is also at this specific moment that the identity of Manus/Seth are revealed to be one and the same.
Manus/Seth come clean with his affair with Evie and he also reveals that they both conspired to shoot the Narrator. There is a brief scuffle but the Narrator overpowers Manus/Seth and she locks him in a closet. When he regains consciousness she forces him to take sedatives and locks him in the trunk of his own car then sets Evie’s house on fire. Once the deeds are done she escapes to Brandy’s apartment, which is actually a hotel room.
While in hiding she is acquainted with three drag performers calling themselves “The Rhea Sisters.” The trio is Brandy’s benefactor, sponsoring all of her operations. Soon Brandy Alexander’s true identity is revealed: she turns out to be The Narrator’s brother, Shane, previously believed to have died from AIDS. Brandy/Shane endeavors to look like his sister, The Narrator through gradual surgical procedures. In a bizarre twist of fate, Brandy/Shane is actually trying to find her sister, ignorant of the Narrator’s real identity. The Narrator, who now assumes the identity of Daisy St. Patience leaves with Brandy. Together they travel the country, living by their wits, scamming people by pretending to be interested buyers of expensive houses or by selling/stealing drugs.
On the road Brandy shares stories of sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a policeman later revealed to be Manus/Seth. She also discloses that she has actually gone through gender reassignment surgery, choosing to live out life as a woman because he believes this to be a means of freeing himself from the influence of others.
While preparing to carry out another scam the pair learns that the realtor of the house they’re surveying is actually Evie Cottrell’s mother. Her mother divulges a couple of interesting facts about her daughter: Evie is actually a male but transitioned at a very young age, and to avoid needing to support her they are marrying her off to some rich fellow. Brandy and the Narrator manage to get themselves invited to the wedding and the story comes back to a full circle from where it started off at the opening scene: at a wedding where the Narrator is committing arson.
More supporting details are revealed at this point. The readers learn that Brandy first met Evie in a support group for transgendered individuals. Evie tells Brandy of the Narrator’s shooting incident and that Brandy is actually aware of the Narrator’s true identity--her sister whose name is revealed to be Shannon McFarland---from the get-go. The shooting incident, as it turns out, is actually a self-inflicted wound. The Narrator/Shannon actually shoots herself in the face on purpose, rationalizing that her beauty is nothing but a form of bondage to her. In order to free herself from it, she disfigures herself in much the same way that Shane/Brandy decided to transition as a male to a female.
The novel cuts to the Narrator, sitting in Brandy’s hospital room while she recuperates. Looking down on Brandy she realizes that she actually does truly love her brother in spite of all that has transpired. She leaves behind all her identification and bids farewell to a sleeping Brandy, telling him that she can have her identity instead as he/she is still quite confused about what he wants in life. The novel ends with the Narrator/Shannon leaving the hospital and Brandy/Shane presumably to start a new life with a completely new identity, unattached to any past.
