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Title details for Open Throat by Henry Hoke - Available

Open Throat

by Henry Hoke
Pete Cross
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity's foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. "I have so much language in my brain," our lion says, "and nowhere to put it." When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call "ellay." As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person or become one? In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke's Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    June 6, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781666634853
      • File size: 52324 KB
      • Duration: 01:49:00

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 3, 2023
      Hoke (The Book of Endless Sleepovers) gives voice to a Los Angeles cougar in his playful latest. Its provocative opening line sets the tone: “I’ve never eaten a person but today I might.” The narrator admits they don’t understand people, observing a group of hikers engaged in what the reader will recognize as a BDSM scenario involving a couple and a man dressed as Indiana Jones. During the day, the cougar hides unnoticed under the Hollywood sign. After dark, they venture into town. Their concerns are immediate—hunger, thirst, survival. Their relationship to their environment is sensual, with sights of running mice, the taste of a possum, or the sound of footsteps. The cougar longs for community, and Hoke sketches them as a quintessential outsider as a fire forces them out of their haunt and they form a surprising bond with a girl they call “little slaughter.” The economical prose reads like poetry, with enjambment in place of punctuation and frequent paragraph breaks. By turns funny and melancholy, this is a thrilling portrait of alienation. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (June)Correction: An earlier version of this review used the incorrect pronoun to refer to the novel's narrator.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Pete Cross works some serious magic with his narration of this beautiful and unusual novella. It's told from the point of view of a lonely mountain lion that is living alone in the Hollywood Hills, observing humans, searching for food, and reminiscing about its childhood. Cross conveys the narrator's non-humanness with surprising pacing and unexpected pronunciations ("Ellay" instead of L.A.). His voice is gravelly and rough but also deliberate and thoughtful. His performance is haunting and deeply sad; the mountain's lion's yearning for connection and sense of alienation underpins every word. At just under two hours, this short but lingering listen is a remarkable meditation on wildness, grief, climate change, and what it means to be sentient. L.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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