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.

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 Los Angeles’s cruel inequalities 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?

Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel and a philosophical fever dream (New York Times bestselling author Maggie Nelson) that brings mythmaking to real life, lionizing an unforgettable hero in the process.