Open Throat

By: Henry Hoke

Narrated by: Pete Cross

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 the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious 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. “I have so much language in my brain,” our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.”

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, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. 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?

In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.

©2023 Henry Hoke (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

An Entertaining Book

This is an entertaining book featuring a compelling narrator—a non-binary mountain lion. It helps that I am from L.A. and used to hike there. I could easily imagine the story unfolding before me as I listened. This is thrilling queer fiction.

Quick listen. Funny, heartfelt, imaginative

Wasn’t sure where it was going at first with the opening scene, and then I quickly fell in love with the first person narrator. Found the objective descriptions of overheard in LA convos funny and painfully true, and was pleasantly surprised to hear the narrator with through things like abandonment, pleasing one’s parents, loss, etc. Great recco from a friend!

Beautiful and heartbreaking story

As a former Angeleno this story felt so special to me and it was not hard to fall in love with the main character; a sensitive queer cougar who is struggling to stay alive.

I cried my eyes out at the end.

Definitely a great read.

Original, Powerful, Touching

A quick listen filled with sharp, simple writing and universal themes of identity, home, and longing for connection to name a few. You don’t have to be from L.A. to fully immerse yourself in this (having lived there, the main character’s POV was great fun for me). The story is straightforward, a good balance of interior/exterior observations. Certain listeners (like me) will find OPEN THROAT brilliantly heartbreaking, a book that will stay with you indefinitely. The narrator was fantastic.

Inventive, wry, and wistful LA story

Henry Hoke’s strange and absorbing short novel is a wonder of voice, setting, and character. A mountain lion whose separation, longing, and animal violence is the perfect narrator, and his view of the human world is a wonder of defamiliarization—that fresh descriptive power that shows us a familiar we haven’t seen before.