Open Throat: A Novel

By Henry Hoke

Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. One of the Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023. One of The New York Times' 10 Best California Books of 2023. Longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.

“Open Throat is what fiction should be.” —The New York Times Book Review

A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel.

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 a nearby homeless encampment, observing 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.

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. 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?

Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world recounted by a lovable mountain lion. Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings the mythic to life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9780374609887

Henry Hoke

Henry Hoke is the author of the memoir Sticker, The Book of Endless Sleepovers, the story collection Genevieves, and the novel The Groundhog Forever. His work has appeared in Electric Literature, Triangle House, The Offing, and the Catapult anthology Tiny Crimes. He holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, where he taught for five years, and presently teaches at the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop and lives in Brooklyn.

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There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.

—GEORGE ELIOT, Middlemarch

I’ve never eaten a person but today I might

I wake up in my thicket to the sound of whipcracks and look out and see a bulky man in a brown leather jacket and brown hat swinging the whip toward two other people a man and a woman

the woman holds a phone up and says you look just like him oh my god

the man with the whip smiles and cracks it again and I feel something in the bottom of my stomach that’s not hunger

I also feel hunger

the man without the whip lies down on his back and spreads his legs and lifts his feet up to the sky and shouts okay do it just flick ’em just lightly flick my nuts

the man with the whip snaps his arm back and forward and the whip hits the dirt in front of the lying down man and the lying down man says yes yes

the woman presses her phone and says be careful those are my boys

I try to understand people but they make it hard

the man on the ground is skinny and the woman with the phone is skinny but the man holding the whip is thick and his neck bulges against the collar of his tan shirt and I can see a vein and hear the blood running down through his arm and his arm flexes and gets meaty every time he raises the whip

the whip hits the ground and kicks up dust and it sounds like the torment of all big cats

fuck this guy

I can smell his insides

my mouth waters and the drool slides down and soaks my paws

I smack my lips louder than the whip’s crack and the people stop like they heard me and the lying down man stands up and the woman turns her phone in my direction and the man with the whip holds the whip at the ready

yeah I heard that says the woman like someone asked her a question

I’m not scared of their eyes

I’m the same color as my thicket and the same color as the ground

no one sees me unless I want them to

the whip makes the bulky man brave and he steps slow toward me and squints and leans in with his throbbing neck vein in full focus

my mouth opens and I judge the distance between the man and his skinny friends and try to decide if I can drag him into the thicket quick enough

I wonder if they’ll chase us or if they’ll run away

it’s been weeks since I’ve eaten anything bigger than a raccoon

I think of how many meals I can get out of this man and how if I store him down in the caves the vultures won’t find him and I’ll be able to come back over and over to eat a little more

I think of all the nights we’ll spend together

this man and his guts and me

let’s get food says the man as he coils the whip around his fist and pulls his neck away from the path of my teeth

the woman claps her hands and says yeah I thought I was totally over brunch but I guess I’m not

I watch them walk fast down the trail and I go to sleep because sleep takes my hunger away

when I wake up I hear the last of the day’s hikers passing my thicket

two girls with huge water bottles that bounce the sunlight through the branches and into my eyes

it’s not easy to sleep on an empty stomach but I guess I did okay

one girl says god I can’t believe it’s dark already

I know we have to start starting earlier says the other

she takes a sip from her bottle and says no matter how much I say no and cancel stuff there’s still no time and the first girl says that’s just your scare city mentality you have to work on that

yeah I just you know this you know I don’t like change says the second girl and the first girl says of course but we all live in scare city under capitalism so we all have to make an effort to deprogram a scare city mentality as like our central driving force

their voices get lower and then I can’t hear them anymore and I yawn and stretch my paws out and their water bottles vanish with their bodies in the sunset

I shouldn’t be here and neither should they

now that the hikers are gone I leave my thicket and go down into the dry ravine where lots of water used to flow and I eat bugs and suck at the little trickles to make

Reviews for Open Throat

[Abigail Johnson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Gorgeous, unique voice and story. I want to read 50 more books like this.

[ronnita · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A quick read with a unique character, loved it. Would recommend it and would read again

[bookscatsetc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting look at a wild cougar's life in LA county. I found the side character of "little slaughter" unbelievable but was able to overlook it for the sake of the over-all story.

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is written from the perspective of a queer mountain lion living under the Hollywood sign. There is a homeless group living in the vicinity and hikers pass by regularly. The animal encounters a variety of environmental issues, such as drought, fire, and flood. This novel is a creative commentary of the damage we are doing to wildlife as their habitats are reduced, but the storyline lost me when the mountain lion is taken in by a girl and hidden from her family. The whole dream sequence in a theme park seemed unnecessary. If it were more humorous or clever, I would have enjoyed it more. It Is certainly not true to mountain lion behavior. The writing is impressive at the prose level, and it is a short and easy read. I liked it but I doubt it will linger with me for long. It requires a reader who enjoys magical realism and anthropomorphism.

[lynnmpk · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this. I was wary going into it because I do not like stream of consciousness, but I was willing to give it a try because of the interesting premise. While there isn't any punctuation, it is formatted in a way that makes it easy to read.

It's a sweet tribute to P-22, and I understand why the people of L.A. (or ellay, as he would call it) felt such comradery with him.

[booklove2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another one I probably wouldn't have read without a nudge from the ToB.  An interesting concept!  Not many books follow non-human characters.  But it was also tough to understand how this mountain lion would be using these words.  At one point he says a particular word isn't a word he knows, but he seems to be doing pretty well with English.  I love the dream sequence at Disney, but again, how would he know any of these things?  So I couldn't just let many of the logistics fly.   But that a mountain lion could have such an intricate dream is heartbreaking.  Ultimately, this seemed a little too much like it wanted to end up as a movie -- it went places I didn't think it would.   I think it knew to be a short book, and in that case, I don't regret reading it.
*Book #143/340 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel from the point of view of a mountain lion in the Hollywood Hills, surprised me with its tenderness. The lion is based on the real P-22, but we see people and dangers through his eyes. He wants to be a part of the world as much as he's confused by it. Pax, a novel from the POV of a fox, hit me more deeply, but that's probably because I read it first.

[charon07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book broke my heart. I finished listening to the audiobook in my car at lunchtime, and I had to sit and sob for a while before going back to work.

[davidabrams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books I read this year was a novel narrated by a queer mountain lion living in the wildland urban interface above Los Angeles ("ellay" in the lion's parlance). As many other readers will tell you, OPEN THROAT by Henry Hoke will grab you (yes, by the throat) from the very first sentence. This is a story about: loneliness, love, fear, climate change, human cell-phone chatter, acceptance, family dysfunction, wilderness preservation, empathy, the savory taste of flesh, loyalty, and two or ten other things--all of it told through the distinct and unforgettable voice of a mountain lion (modeled after the real life "P-22" cat who lived in the Hollywood Hills). I'll admit I was a bit skeptical when I began "Open Throat," wondering how Henry Hoke could convince me of the lion's queerness. Reader, by the time I reached page 62, I was convinced. This book is perfect, first word to last.

[kalliegrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wry, sly, strangely addicting.

[tytania-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The narrator is a displaced mountain lion in California. It was certainly interesting, and nicely brief. I like books that try to capture an animal's perspective. It really lost me though when the girl takes him to Disney World.