Open Throat

by Henry Hoke

Open Throat is about a mountain lion who lives in LA under the Hollywood sign…told from the POV of the mountain lion. It sounds strange, but hear me out—it works. The mountain lion feels kinship with unhoused people who camp in the park where they live, and this pocket sized novel follows the lion as they are forced out of the park due to wildfire and end up living with the daughter of a celebrity.

This book is heavy, and I recognize it won’t be for everyone. You’ll know within the first few pages if it speaks to you or not. But the thing that has stayed with me is how this mountain lion—who is unnamed until nearly the end—can so astutely and effectively observe the human condition in a way that’s simultaneously close but with the perspective of distance. They (we’re told the mountain lion is queer) somehow comment on everything from the ubiquity of cell phones to climate change to the loss of animal habitats to how one seemingly small action (by a human) can have such far-reaching implications, but it doesn’t feel preachy at all. Instead, the misunderstood language (“scare city” for scarcity and “Diznee” for Disney, for example) and predominant lack of punctuation make it feel truly authentic. The lion is observing these things without understanding them, which somehow makes the effect on the reader even more poignant. It’s a strange book, for sure, but a moving one, and a character and perspective I’m still thinking about, even days after finishing it. When I came across this book the reviewer said it was funny, and while I can see why people would find humor in it, to me it was primarily heartbreaking. And profoundly so.