In Open Throat, a feral mountain lion roams the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles (“ellay”). He’s hungry, but has his limits as to what prey he’ll pursue. He even protects a homeless camp, unbeknownst to its inhabitants.
Author Harry Hoke’s novel addresses climate change, homelessness and humankind’s encroachment on nature. Almost poetic in form, the lion narrates the story as he watches hikers and eavesdrops on their conversations. Some words he overhears often enough that they become part of his narrative: scarcity becomes scare city.
The lion witnesses the start of a manmade fire, something erroneously blamed on the homeless camp. The heat and smoke force the lion into a residential neighborhood where he finds shelter in the basement of a house he overheard someone say was owned by “slaughter.”
He’s soon discovered by the owner’s teenage daughter who calls him “hecat” and he refers to her “little slaughter.” (All quotation marks are mine, not the author’s).
There’s no punctuation no capitalization except for the personal pronoun I. Excluding the italicized statements from little slaughter, who treats him in as a pet and support animal, everything is from the lion’s perspective. When she takes him to Disneyland, suspending disbelief is challenged!
From 2012 to 2022, a puma known in the Los Angeles area as P-22 roamed Griffith Park. His presence was well known making him a celebrity of sorts. The only concern for Hoke’s predator comes from little slaughter; otherwise, interest in his wellbeing is, reasonably, overshadowed by fear.
Open Throat
Three bookmarks
MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023
160 pages
The Blue Page Special 
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