Gasoline Books: Small Print
Big Cat Energy 🐈
Last week, I succumbed to the TikTok buzz and checked out “Open Throat” by Henry Hoke. By the review videos I watched, I doubted if this book was going to be for me: An experimental novel? Told from the perspective of a gay mountain lion? Ehh…
Then I cracked it open.
Loosely inspired by the actual feline icon, P-22, the mountain lion who called L.A. his litter box home, the prose pounces between lyrical, poetic, and anthropomorphic narrative. Less punctuated than a Cormac McCarthy novel and organized into chapters so tidy they’d make Marie Kondo jealous, the prose is nearly as propulsive as P-22 chasing its dinner. I couldn’t put it down.
The novel follows the aforementioned gay mountain lion living in Griffith Park. Through the animal’s perspective, “ellay” people are subsumed with “scare city” and talking on their phones (in a comical scene, he struggles to work a forgotten device). After surviving a harrowing feat (no spoilers, don’t worry), he wanders the streets and backyards of L.A., eventually encountering a caretaker who can see beyond his ferocity and attempts to domesticate him, with varying degrees of success. We’re all indebted to our natures.
By removing the drone of human self-awareness, the mountain lion observes the absurdity, graciousness, and cruelty of the people he studies. The book also turns its lens to relationships: those we nurture, others we damage, and more we’re compelled to flee simply for the sake of survival. It poses the question around authenticity and the sacrifices we make in order to follow our prey drive, as it were. It’s also about chosen family.
The story is one of a hero’s journey, at the end of the day. We see the mountain lion seek for camaraderie, love, and acceptance (not in a cringey cartoonish way, but through mechanisms far more believable and akin to a mountain lion’s disposition). We watch him consider “the long death,” the dangerous parade that P-22 marched on L.A. freeway, his first time in a car, and the distraction that leads to his separation from his caretaker. You want the mountain lion to win — whatever that looks like for a wild animal.
Ultimately, the mountain lion is the most humane thing in the novel. It’s blazing fast, short, and delightful. Pick this one up if you want something purely unique and so delectable, you’ll lick your paws clean after finishing it.