Infinite Books

“Open Throat” by Henry Hoke is a slim but perhaps the most beautiful novel I read this year. It’s told from the perspective of a mountain lion who lives in the desert hills below the Hollywood sign. The mountain lion is queer: his lover, “the kill sharer,” was another male mountain lion. The hunt becomes difficult because people seem everywhere: hiking, looking at their phones, and discussing their therapists. The mountain lion has their language and describes things the way they see them: an L.A. highway becomes “the long death,” and L.A. is “ellay,” the way the mountain lion hears people talk about it. This description of a few weeks, with some memories of childhood and youth, is written in fragmented prose, perfectly fitting the mountain lion’s language. It flows gently and is effortless to read, even for more traditional readers.

"the hikers say things like look at that view or say things like, we have to do this more often get up here and get perspective

what they see makes them point or stop and turn and put their hands on their hips and breathe deep but the distance they love is an out of focus blur when I try to look where they’re looking

all I can see is what’s right in front of me”

Eventually, the action moves into L.A., where the mountain lion discovers more details about people from a hiding place below a Hollywood celebrity “slaughter’s” home. I found their observation incredibly touching, comparable to meditations on human behavior, but in a very fresh way. The mountain lion is not an anthropomorphic character as if in a Disney movie (“diznee” in the lion’s language ), and if I had to compare them to something, it would be almost a god-like figure, looking at us with watchful eyes, trying to understand this curious kind of species but ultimately judging us. And the judgment is not a favorable one.

OPEN THROAT by Henry Hoke, FSG, 2023