In Open Throat, Henry Hoke’s “queer and dangerously hungry” protagonist confronts a central question: “Do they want to eat a person, or become one?” Inspired by a real-life Hollywood Hills puma, Hoke uses an animal perspective to break into human language, highlighting cruelties and contradictions in the anthropocene world. Our protagonist is a naive and probing witness to all that L.A. has to offer: sex, crime, cars, climate change, economic disparity, digital content creation, New York transplants, and more. A delicious contribution to contemporary fiction, the book defamiliarizes the human world, while simultaneously revealing hidden depths to hunger, desire, grief, and care.
Hoke will appear in conversation with celebrated author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, Melissa Broder.
About the speakers:
Henry Hoke is an editor at the Offing and the author of five books, most recently the novel Open Throat and the memoir Sticker.
Melissa Broder is the author of the novels Milk Fed, The Pisces, and the forthcoming Death Valley, the essay collection So Sad Today, and five poetry collections, including Superdoom. Her books are translated in ten languages. She has written for the New York Times, Elle.com, and New York magazine’s the Cut. She lives in Los Angeles.
