239 pages
English language
Published Nov. 14, 2013
In the fall of 1978, on the 640-acre family deer-hunting ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, an eleven-year-old boy goes hunting with three men: his father, grandfather, and a friend of his father's. Goat Mountain is a dry place of live oak and buck brush and poison oak with occasional relief from stands of ponderosa pine, white pine, and sugar pine, and even a swampy bear wallow. This is the place where all the family's memories and stories and history are held. When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father spots a poacher hunting illegally on his property. When he lets his eleven-year-old son take a look through the scope of his rifle, the boy pulls the trigger. The men struggle over what to do with the dead man. Though the struggle begins between the father and grandfather, it ultimately becomes a struggle between the …
In the fall of 1978, on the 640-acre family deer-hunting ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, an eleven-year-old boy goes hunting with three men: his father, grandfather, and a friend of his father's. Goat Mountain is a dry place of live oak and buck brush and poison oak with occasional relief from stands of ponderosa pine, white pine, and sugar pine, and even a swampy bear wallow. This is the place where all the family's memories and stories and history are held. When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father spots a poacher hunting illegally on his property. When he lets his eleven-year-old son take a look through the scope of his rifle, the boy pulls the trigger. The men struggle over what to do with the dead man. Though the struggle begins between the father and grandfather, it ultimately becomes a struggle between the grandfather and the boy. By the end, nothing is as it seems.
Dear lord, what did I just read? I don't know if this was the most profound thing or the most obscene. Agh, I don't want to have to think about this right now, I want to forget. I won't even rate this.
Vielversprechende Geschichte, aber überfrachtet mit den ganzen expliziten Deutungen und Überlegungen, die eigentlich allenfalls irgendwann von Kritikern und Literaturwissenschaftlern separat geliefert werden sollten. Außerdem absurdes Getue mit Leichen, eine Art "The Trouble With Harry", nur ohne erkennbare Motivation und weniger lustig.
