In the fall of 1978, on the 640-acre family deer-hunting ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, a couple hours north of Clear Lake on a four-wheel-drive road, 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.
An exploration of our most primal urges, what rules hold us together, and what we owe for what we've done, Goat Mountain is a compulsive read. Goat Mountain (part 1 of 24)
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"David Vann is at once the most timely and timeless of writers…Goat Mountain is a ravishing example of his mastery…This book will touch you to the depths of our shared, flawed humanity."
"Meet David Vann, one [of] the most talented writers in the American West. Goat Mountain, with all its responsibility and recriminations, is the man at his absolute finest."
"Shocking…The author's descriptions of the northern California
landscape-the chaparral, woods, and mountains-are also masterly…This beautifully realized novel is recommended for fans of literary
fiction but is not for the faint of heart."
"Vann offers a meditation on violence set during a deer hunt on a Northern California mountain in 1978…This flint-hard novel, in its intensity, will likely be compared to the work of Cormac McCarthy."
"Weaving biblical themes around bloodshed and sacrifice into visceral, graphic language, Vann's novel is not for the faint of heart, yet it just may be his finest, most contemplative work to date."
"Vann's third novel is his most visceral yet: a grinding examination of killing, God and the unnamable forces that create a dynasty of violence…This book is as all of Vann's fiction: provocative and unforgiving."
