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The Language of Elk
Stories
Description
“Benjamin Percy is a force.” — Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
This debut collection of stories, The Language of Elk, by the award-winning author of Red Moon, assembles its cast from the mountain towns and low life taverns and high desert ranches of Oregon–a state that in isolated pockets remains a still-unfinished place, the frontier.
Here nature exists as a source of wonder and a force to be conquered. Here myths haunt the moss-laden woods and Benjamin Percy shines his light on them, revealing bearded ladies and Bigfoot and marijuana colonies and elk hunting ranches and haunted Indian burial sites, the underside of contemporary western America.
With a salty mystical voice that partners the landscape and a vision as wild as his characters, Percy explores a world of surprising violence and gentleness, hilarity and heartbreak, loveliness and ugliness, and in doing so emerges as a beautifully raw voice of the West.
This debut collection of stories, The Language of Elk, by the award-winning author of Red Moon, assembles its cast from the mountain towns and low life taverns and high desert ranches of Oregon–a state that in isolated pockets remains a still-unfinished place, the frontier.
Here nature exists as a source of wonder and a force to be conquered. Here myths haunt the moss-laden woods and Benjamin Percy shines his light on them, revealing bearded ladies and Bigfoot and marijuana colonies and elk hunting ranches and haunted Indian burial sites, the underside of contemporary western America.
With a salty mystical voice that partners the landscape and a vision as wild as his characters, Percy explores a world of surprising violence and gentleness, hilarity and heartbreak, loveliness and ugliness, and in doing so emerges as a beautifully raw voice of the West.
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Praise
"The Language of Elk, made of equal parts pain, comedy and sweetness, is a book that will leave you gasping and wanting more. Each of the stories contained herein is a sharply-written, laugh-out-loud barn-burner, and Benjamin Percy is the best new writer to step into the spotlight in years."
—Brady Udall, author of The MIracle Life of Edgar Mint and Letting Loose the Hounds
"In The Language of Elk, men and creatures stagger in a no man' land between wildness and domesticity, jealous, cracked, burning to be acknowledged. Like the flaming projectiles his protagonists often launch into the sky, these stories crackle with energy and violence and a furious beauty. Benjamin Percy is a force."
—Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See
"Mr. Percy's talent is even more monstrous than Bigfoot himself--epic, beautiful, shocking, funny, brutal, brilliant--and when this book has torn out your heart and fed it to the crows, don't be surprised if you feel grateful and want to go through that all over again."
—Mike Magnuson, author of of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man, The Fire Gospels and The Right Man for the Job
"With his debut collection, The Language of Elk, Benjamin Percy takes a sledgehammer to the myths of the West. These stories, red in tooth and nail, brim with the primal charm of a writer putting the pedal to the metal. Buy this book, crack the spine, and get pummeled by Percy."
—Elwood Reid, Author of What Salmon Know, D.B., Midnight Sun, and If I Don't Six