Helen
Whooo, what a ride! Truly half the book I was... taken to a dark place. Yet, though the world is dark enough and horror is not my usual genre, I didn't consider putting the book down for long. And, I should note, even if the story was historical fiction alone and not of the horror genre, one could make an argument that it would still be horror due to the fallibility of the human species and settler colonial immorality. In that way, making a horror story of it rather fits.
I understand what some folks included in their reviews re: hard to parse prose, but I think you've ultimately just got to flow with some long sentence construction. Similarly, not being a horror buff, I didn't fully understand complaints related to genre; that said, I enjoy experimental forms and new weird types of writing. Lastly, I appreciated Graham Jones' animal descriptors and depictions. I will be sending his story on to my friend who lives in MILES CITY, MONTANA. Dun dun dun.
Author is a skilled and highly readable writer. Makes sweeping claims about all native Americans in such a way that i questions his purported objectivity. Some claims are inaccurate, for example, the dates he gives for when farming was first discovered in the Americas (p. 46). As there are so many wonderful books to read in the world, I will not be continuing with this one.
This is a fun jaunt, full of likable and laughable characters. Wouldn’t say McKibben’s fiction is as strong as his non-fiction, but this is a short and easy read and does make me want to head to Vermont for some local beer.
I loved this book, ‘dog-earing’ many pages to return to. Flores’ writing is fluid, engrossing, and wide-ranging, spanning coyote(s) in his personal experience, myth and lore, genetics, politics, and, all and all, North America. Parts of the book are hard to read - the war on coyotes to this day is disturbing in internet callousness and also it’s pointlessness.
