In Los Angeles in 2022 a mountain lion known as P 22 was euthanised by the staff at Griffith Park Wildlife Area. He was was twelve years old and had made the journey there from higher up in the mountains when he has two years old. The park consists of 4200 acres and provides space for camping, hiking, and bird and wildlife observing. Hikers are advised to steer clear of mountain lions as they are elusive and unpredictable animals. The mountain lions don’t like to be seen but as this is prime habitat, sightings are relatively common. This park is above LA and not far from the Hollywood sign.

Henry Hoke’s novella gives us a sense of what it might be like to be a mountain lion, in a quite hostile environment. Water is scarce, he needs to get to the encampments and raid the bins to find food. Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to eat a person, but so far it hasn’t happened. He listens to humans talking. They discuss their unsatisfactory therapists

He lives below the Hollywood sign and near to an encampment of homeless people. He visits them regards them as ‘his people’

there are four of them and they have three tents set up just a few layers back in the trees where the hikers can’t see

but I see in the dark

And older man calls him puma and leaves his trash out for the lion to feed on.

The mountain lion hides and listens to the people talking. He is barely getting by on occasional drinks of water and left over scraps of food.

Then comes an earthquake. He flees to the caves, still hungry in spite of the shudders. He is lucky, there are bats flying,

I leap and swat one bat down from the air and crack its neck with my teeth and then I do the same with another and another

The next day rescue helicopters are flying over (he hears a hiker call it that). He is hungry and begins to think of blood

when I’m hungry I think of blood too much

but he decides

I probably wouldn’t eat a child

Hiding in the caves he sees men having assignations, but he also sees one of his arch enemies the man with the whip, start a fire in the homeless people’s camp and that stays with him. He will have his revenge on that man.

But before that comes about, there is a little interlude where he has a companionable meeting with a young woman whom he calls little slaughter. She is the daughter of a rich man and for a time she hides him. She calls him Hecate (the Greek goddess of witchcraft and the moon). He hears it as heckit. She is not afraid of him and seems to understand him. They go journeying together in her car. Do they go to Disneyland? Or is it all a dream?

I found this rather hard to believe. He is supposed to be a wild creature with a dangerous appetite but for a while he is cosy with this young woman.

But in the end his true mountain lion’s soul lets rip and he is able to revenge the damage done to his friends.

The voice and the misunderstandings of the mountain lion are skilfully done. Some see this book less as an insight into the mind of a mountain lion, but more as a metaphor for being queer in a society where difference is tolerated if it does not draw too much attention to itself. Maybe. I didn’t see much evidence that the mountain lion was ‘queer’. I couldn’t help thinking that this was played up in the publicity as a selling point.

It does perhaps speak about the plight of the disadvantaged in our society be they human or animal, but the voice of the animal was not as relatable as in other books of this genre.

A poetic and unusual book. The first ever I would say in the voice of a mountain lion. But as to how convincing this voice Is I’m not really sure.

Next month we’ll be hearing from a squirrel. Let’s see how convincing that is.