Goat Mountain, David Vann
Goat Mountain, David Vann
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Goat Mountain

Author: David Vann

Narrator: Tristan Morris

Unabridged: 7 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/10/2013

Categories: Fiction


Synopsis

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 fathers. 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 familys 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 weve done, Goat Mountain is a compulsive read.

About David Vann

David Vann is an internationally bestselling author whose works have been published in twenty-three languages, won fourteen prizes, and have appeared on eighty-three "Best Books" lists. A former Guggenheim fellow, he is currently a professor at the University of Warwick in England as well as an honorary professor at the University of Franche-Comté in France.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Will on February 26, 2015

This review has also been cross-posted on my blog. Images tend to disappear on GR. They are all present there. The book was released on Tuesday, September 10, 2013. The trade paperback was released on October 14, 2014. Drama is a description of what is bad inside of us and the end point of that is......more

Goodreads review by Lark on September 03, 2021

5 stars for the hysteria of the violence, for the Oedipus Tyrannus level of violence; for the way David Vann is willing to go this far. David Vann mostly reminds me of David Vann--his latest novel, Aquarium, is closer to Goat Mountain than any other novel I've read. There is also something here in t......more

Goodreads review by switterbug (Betsey) on July 12, 2013

Vann’s latest book is truly an ambitious one. His subject matter and theme—essentially, the savage beast that resides inside the man, reminds me of similar themes covered by Cormac McCarthy. I have read McCarthy’s entire oeuvre, and I suspect that Vann has, too. In this setting, the reader is taken......more

Goodreads review by Jill on July 06, 2013

If David Vann never writes another book – and hopefully, that will not be the case – his reputation will be secured by Goat Mountain. I read it with mounting excitement and horror; although this book may be the darkest book I have ever read, I am convinced it is a masterpiece. The bare-bones plot is......more