Open Throat by Henry Hoke

On what it means to be human, as told by a (gay, gender uncertain) mountain lion, and the great tragedy of loving a book

Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash

I don’t remember when, where, or who, but I heard someone talking about this book on a podcast and immediately requested it from the library. Months passed. I’d forgotten about the book. Then, an email in my inbox: Open Throat is ready for pickup at the library. It came back to me then: a mountain lion narrator. A book with no punctuation. A quick read. Something I won’t soon forget.

It is all of those things, and it’s so much more.

It’s been a few weeks since I read this book, and I’ve since posted my thoughts about it on Instagram, but here I am talking about it again because there is more I want to say.

This slim novel is narrated by a gay mountain lion living in the hills under the Hollywood sign. Ordinarily, I’d hear that it’s narrated by someone (or something) other than a human and wouldn’t even consider picking it up.¹ But after the first page, I knew I wouldn’t be putting the book down until it was finished. What I didn’t know is how ravenous it would make me for other books like it.

The lack of punctuation in Open Throat could have thrown me off even more than the fact that it’s narrated by an animal. But, as you will see in the quote below, it’s quite simple to follow — punctuation or not.

The mountain lion — who calls Los Angeles “ellay” because all they know (this narrator goes by they/them pronouns) is what they learn from hikers around their home — pays witness to humanity in a way I have never seen before. They talk about how people are always looking down at their phones, hiking but not talking or observing. They consider the homeless encampment nearby as their town, their community — even their people. They are protective of these people, too, not judging them for being without a home. In fact, the mountain lion doesn’t know they are homeless. How would they? Those in the encampment have the simple things in life they need: food, water, community.

Our solitary narrator eventually befriends a girl who names them Heckit. Heckit learns to love. Heckit witnesses a careless man do something horrible to his people in the homeless encampment. Heckit goes on a roadtrip with their friend. Heckit seeks justice.

It is so beautiful.

I don’t know how author Henry Hoke crammed so much into so few words (it’s around 20,000 words. For reference, your average 300-page novel is around 80,000 words. When I googled how many words Open Throat is, an article by one of my favorite authors,

Courtney Maum

, came up: Get shorty: The tight novel trend is here. And I am here for the short novel trend!)

The length of this book astonished me, and as soon as I finished it I wanted to pick it up and start it anew. The great tragedy of loving a book is that you’ll never get to read it again for the first time. I was no longer new to this story; I wanted to mourn the short time I spent reading it.

Instead, I convinced my husband to read it. He sped through it. One night while reading, he laughed and read me a quote. I asked him if it was from page 39. He looked at me like I was crazy — and perhaps I am. That passage stood out to me, too, and because it was a library book and I couldn’t underline it (and I didn’t have sticky bookmarks with me), I memorized the page number so I could return to it.

Here’s page 39:

I have trouble sleeping in the twisted trees because there are so many hikers who go by and talk loud all day

they talk about how no one in ellay has real jobs but from what they describe as real jobs I don’t think they have them either

ellay is a mecca for the underemployed they say

to be employed they need skills

they say to each other you’ve got so many marketable skills

I go over my skills

my skills are hiding so long that you forget I’m there

I repeat: it is a mountain lion narrating this. How singularly genius it is of Hoke to have selected this animal to reveal these granular and honest tenets of humanity — ones humans are often blind to.

Author Laura Steven over at

Writerly Ephemera

posed this question recently: “When did publishing become so afraid of strangeness?”

The point she’s making in her article (On the tyranny of genre, and the art we lose between the cracks) is that many beautiful books are having a hard time finding a home because they don’t fit into a specific genre. I don’t know what genre Open Throat is (I’m thinking literary fiction but it’s got an element of fantasy, as you have to suspend your disbelief no small amount to follow a mountain lion) — and I don’t care.

This story moved me. That’s all you can hope for when opening a book.

If you are what

Junot Díaz

refers to as a “promiscuous reader,” or if you want to be, pick up this title. Like all of the books I read, Open Throat is not for everyone. But hot damn, it is for me. If you are drawn to the bizarre or the emotionally triggering (in a smart, balanced way), I encourage you to give it a read. And if you do read it, please let me know your thoughts in the comments below or by responding to this email. I won’t be offended if you don’t love it as much as I do.

What I’m reading:

• Next Time You Leave by Andrea Gonzalez — This contemporary romance was released last week, and it’s written by my step-sister! It’s so amazing to see all of her hard work turned into a real, live novel packed with great storytelling.

• The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell — I loved Hamnet by the same author and I might already be loving this one more. (It takes place in Italy, which is an auto-win for me.)

• Jaded by Ela Lee — A book about a lawyer who wakes up after a work party and doesn’t remember how she got home. It’s about consent, identity, and power dynamics. What isn’t interesting about that?

What I’m listening to:

• Vladimir by Julia May Jonas — I’m about 20 minutes into this, and since I’m enjoying it so much, I think I might pause it and purchase the paperback.

What are you reading??? Listening to? Adoring?

Love,

Words on Words is a free newsletter about books that hits inboxes on Thursdays. If you have comments, suggestions, questions, or recommendations, leave a note below or reply to this email!

Note: When you purchase books from my Bookshop.org affiliate page, you are supporting the author of the book, an indie bookstore of your choice, and Words on Words.

1. I almost didn’t read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus because I heard the narration dips into the dog’s point of view occasionally. Glad I did though, it’s a fantastic book.