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Pity the Beast
- Author
- Robin McLean
- Narrator
- Dion Graham
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 1 January 2022
- Run Time
- 11 hours 59 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Following in the footsteps of such chroniclers of American absurdity as Cormac McCarthy, Joy Williams, and Charles Portis, Robin McLean’s Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas stretching back to prehistory, sideways into legend, and off into a lonesome future.
Millennia ago, Ginny’s family ranch was all grass and rock and wild horses. A thousand years hence, it’ll all be peacefully underwater. In the matter-of-fact here and now, though, it’s a hotbed of lust and resentment, and about to turn ugly, because Ginny’s just cheated on her husband Dan with the man who lives next door.
Out on these prairies, word travels fast: everyone seems to know everyone’s business. They know what Ginny did, and they know Ginny isn’t sorry. She might not be proud of what she’s done, but she doesn’t regret it either. To be honest, she enjoyed the hell out of it, and as far as Ginny is concerned, that should be the end of the story. Problem is, no one else seems able to let it go. The community can’t bear to let a woman like Ginny off the hook. Not with an attitude like hers.
With detours through time, space, and myth, not to mention into the minds of a pack of philosophical mules, Pity the Beast heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American letters. It is a novel that turns our assumptions about the West, masculinity, good and evil, and the very nature of storytelling onto their heads, with an eye to the cosmic as well as the comic. It urges us to write our stories anew—if we want to avoid becoming beasts ourselves.
Critics Review
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“Full of casually perfect writing, especially about animals and nature…a work of crazy brilliance.”
The Guardian (London)
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“Wild, surprising, and not a little frightening…I find them full of vitality and wonder.”
Paris Review
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“Dion Graham’s performance of this violent feminist survival story set in the American West is nothing short of incredible…Listeners will feel rewarded.”
AudioFile
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“Her characters…mostly they bicker, wisecrack, and daydream, their behavior—crude but engaging, and often even endearing—so grippingly at odds with their drift into savagery.””
Wall Street Journal
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“Moves through time, space, and myth in order to explore a larger philosophical canvas beyond the immediate drama.”
Daily Mail (London)
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“Raw and elemental, searing yet wry, this has much to say on law and lawlessness, sexual politics, and humans’ animal nature.”
Publishers Weekly
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“A brutally gorgeous fever dream of a novel.”
Sabina Murray, author of The Human Zoo
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“A revenge narrative that never loses sight of the power of empathy.”
Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron
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“Not since Faulkner have I read American prose so bristling with life and particularity.”
J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize–winning author
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“A magnificent work of art by a fearless and utterly original writer. I read it with wonder and terror, exhilaration, and admiration.”
Chris Bachelder, author of The Throwback Special
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“McLean writes scenes that feel as vibrant, terrifying, and wondrous as your most adrenalized memories.”
Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Robin McLean
- Narrator
- Dion Graham
- Duration
- 11 hours 59 minutes
- Release Date
- 1 January 2022
- ISBN
- 9798200831340
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Fiction: general and literary, Narrative theme: Environmental issues, Adventure fiction: Westerns, Fiction: general and literary, Feminism and feminist theory, Narrative theme: Interior life
Synopsis
Following in the footsteps of such chroniclers of American absurdity as Cormac McCarthy, Joy Williams, and Charles Portis, Robin McLean’s Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas stretching back to prehistory, sideways into legend, and off into a lonesome future.Millennia ago, Ginny’s family ranch was all grass and rock and wild horses. A thousand years hence, it’ll all be peacefully underwater. In the matter-of-fact here and now, though, it’s a hotbed of lust and resentment, and about to turn ugly, because Ginny’s just cheated on her husband Dan with the man who lives next door.Out on these prairies, word travels fast: everyone seems to know everyone’s business. They know what Ginny did, and they know Ginny isn’t sorry. She might not be proud of what she’s done, but she doesn’t regret it either. To be honest, she enjoyed the hell out of it, and as far as Ginny is concerned, that should be the end of the story. Problem is, no one else seems able to let it go. The community can’t bear to let a woman like Ginny off the hook. Not with an attitude like hers.With detours through time, space, and myth, not to mention into the minds of a pack of philosophical mules, Pity the Beast heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American letters. It is a novel that turns our assumptions about the West, masculinity, good and evil, and the very nature of storytelling onto their heads, with an eye to the cosmic as well as the comic. It urges us to write our stories anew—if we want to avoid becoming beasts ourselves.
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