Gojiro is the 1991 debut novel by former Esquire columnist Mark Jacobson. It reinterprets the Godzilla film series from the perspective of the daikaiju—not a fictional creature depicted on-screen via suitmation, but an irradiated varanid-turned B-movie star named Gojiro (an homage to Gojira, the original native proper name in Japanese for Godzilla). Gojiro, a freak mutation with a cynical worldview, suffers the pain of solitude as well as several maladies experienced by entertainers, including drug abuse and suicidal tendencies. The story revolves around his adventures with human friend Komodo, a scientific genius scarred as a child by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as they attempt to fulfill their "Triple Ring Promise" to bring about world peace. The odyssey takes them from their home on Radioactive Island—also home to several children, called Atoms, suffering from radiation sickness—to several locations in Hollywood and the Trinity site in New Mexico. The novel is often compared to John Gardner's earlier novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf epic through the eyes of the monster. Plot summary The earliest event is the striking of a comet into the earth 65 million years ago, at the Encrucijada Valley site as the first nuclear test later occurs. A small lizard witnesses and survives this event, and carries on his line. This lizard is revered as the heroic Varanidid by Gojiro's lizard homeland, though they forget what exactly he did. He is also the precursor of the reptilian creator-beast revered by the dying Monongae clan that lived in the same location before the nuclear tests occurred. The remains of the dead dinosaurs form fossil fuels which pool under the valley. Much later, in the 19th century, Joseph Prometheus Brooks is born to a large middle American family, his father a severe and religious man. Joseph's mother recognizes his genius and manages to have him sent away at a very young age to the university of Göttingen in Germany, where he meets his future collaborator in nuclear physics, Victor Stiller. When he returns home on holiday, he finds that his father has burned the entire rest of the family to death, along with their home, believing that existence is an affront to God. Some time later, the last few members of the Monongae clan send supplications of help to the beast who lives inside the Earth to help them, and charge the youngest member, Nelson Monongae with reawakening him.