Book Review: ‘Open Throat’ by Henry Hoke (from the POV of a queer mountain lion)
Simon from Savidge Reads on YouTube hauled a proof of ‘Open Throat’ recently and said that it was about ‘a queer mountain lion’ - how could I not be immediately intrigued by that? I had to have it. Especially having loved ‘Patricia Wants to Cuddle’ by Samantha Allen last year which is about a lesbian King Kong-size gorilla.
I’m really loving this resurgence of short, weird, challenging novels like this, and it’s especially brilliant to see them focus on the queer community.
‘I’ve never eaten a person but today I might . . .’
In the Hollywood hills, a mountain lion is struggling to survive. Isolated and afraid in a place devastated by drought, the lion’s endless hunger begins to get to him. As the land around him continues to decay, he begins to fantasize about killing the hikers who pass him by day after day.
As it protects the precarious welfare of a nearby homeless encampment from its thicket, it confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, taking us on a tour that spans the city’s cruel inequalities to the toll of climate grief, all while grappling with the complexities of its own gender identity and memories of a vicious, absent father.
Open Throat is a stinging, moving and intimate look at the impact the climate crisis has on animals and our environment. There are moving and laugh-out-loud moments, but ultimately this poignant narrative voice forces you to reckon with our dying planet.
I never faltered in my beliefs that I was in the head of this mountain lion (or puma or courgar or cat as they also hear themselves be called). The language is wonderful. It’s a stream of consciousness narration of this ageing big cat being consumed by hunger and thirst as he prowls hiss reduced territory in the bush around the Hollywood sign. He overhears and oversee hookups, breakups, betrayals and the casual cruelty of humans, observing life in ‘ellay’ and the ‘scare city’ mentality of the people they encounter, all while fear the ‘long death’ - the highway that borders his territory and has taken countless animal lives.
“and I’m not at all hungry this is not about need no this is want it’s a terrible choice but I’m making it just like a person”
It’s a quietly sad commentary on the ways that cities and humans are eating up animal habitat and nature; the throwaway decisions made by people that destroy the lives of strangers; loneliness and isolation; the potential misunderstanding of actions that you don’t understand because a person, or a mountain lion, is a dangerous creature, an unknown, and you can’t possibly know that they are trying to save a life in the only way that they know how.
I was enraptured by this narration for most of it, until a scene surrounding Disneyland which really through me off and out of the story. I found myself at a distance from that point on, and yet that didn’t stop the ending being a guttingly sad one.
After reading the author’s acknowledgements and having a little Google, I think he’s based on P-22, a famous mountain lion who lived in Griffiths Park in LA for a decade, becoming a star in his own right. There are even a few scenes and incidences in the novel that reflect P-22’s life. It’s a fascinating story when only truth, and taking it into fiction was a really wonderful move by Hoke and I enjoyed it a lot.
‘Open Throat’ is a sad, strange and eviscerating novella, that makes you take a second look at the natural world and wonder even more just what going’s through the mind of the cat sleeping on the end of the bed.
‘Open Throat’ by Henry Hoke will be released in the UK by Picador on 27 July 2023.
Thank you to NetGalley and Picador for providing a review copy. All thoughts and opinions remain my own.
Written by Sophie
