A tour-de-force by the acclaimed jazz pianist Laurent de Wilde, Monk is a personal, anecdotal biography of one of the greatest, most controversial pianists/composers in modern music. Laurent has captured the everydayness of Monk, his bearing, his eccentricities, his stubbornness and isolation, and the narrow circle of women around him.

Laurent writes of Monk's distinctive fingering, of his producers, engineers and agents, of money and tours, of the importance of the rhythm section, of saxophones, drugs, and Pannonica, of Nellie, and of madness.