Open Throat by Henry Hoke

Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023--San Antonio

Open Throat by Henry Hoke is a fascinating short novel.  It all takes place in the mind of a cougar living in the Hollywood Hills.  The cougar has learned to understand and think in English because of all the encounters he has had with hikers, campers, etc.  He tries to avoid direct encounters with humans and has never eaten human flesh before.  He actually considers homeless human campers as his alternative family, since he has come to be alone in the hills over time and one of the humans in the camp (who all know he exists in the area) always leave a bit of meat for the cougar under the bones he throws away from the meals they have eaten.  Life as he prefers it is becoming harder for the cougar, however.  There are more and more encounters with humans.  And eventually, a fire occurs that destroys his habitat sending him fleeing into "elay" (the spelling he hears when humans talk about the city) as his only escape.  There is so much to appreciate about this story--the imagination required to write it, the humor that occurs based on the spellings used to express what the cougar thinks he has heard, the dignity and morality that the cougar tries to build his life around, the stress that the development of cities places on the natural animal inhabitants of the land, etc.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it.  I'm down-rating it to 4 stars out of 5 only because of the improbable chance encounter with a known human (from previous encounters in the hills) that occurs at the end of the story.