Unicorn Mountain

by Michael Lawson Bishop

Book Overview

Unicorns roam the uplands of Libby Quarrels' mountain ranch. When Libby takes the AIDS-afflicted Bo Gavin out of exile in Atlanta to live with her in Colorado, she sees no connection between his disease and the fantastic secret she guards. But it so happens the unicorns suffer from a plague of their own, and the alternate world that touches the high country has unleashed magic sinister as well as marvelous. While Libby's Indian ranch hand Sam is stalked...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877959536
• ISBN13: 9780877959533
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 367 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Magical Realism

I don't usually just unconditionally rave about a book, but this one deserves 5 stars and heaps of praise. The human relationships are drawn so well, the strains of Native American culture still surviving in modern society are sensitively and convincingly depicted, and we get a well-rounded portrait of an AIDS victim drawn when the disease was still somewhat new . . . all these things are wonderful, and that's not even counting the main character and the magical unicorns. Also, the device of the TV broadcasting channels from an alternate dimension -- sounds like a silly convention, but it works, as does just about everything in this marvelous, affirming book. I must find more by this author!

Y'all left out the Native American love interest...

I noticed in the other reviews that nobody mentioned the Native American guy the main character forms a love interest with. And I think Bishop did a terrific job describing how a rural vet might react when confronted with a herd of sick unicorns. How do we get a book back into print?

Transforming

I read this book somewhere around the time I was 10-12. Although I think that it might be better recieved among older readers, I understood it then and it was a fantastic book. It is almost ten years later and the story still haunts me(I can't get my hands on the book now, the library has lost their copy). A powerful story that finds it's strength with themes of AIDS/homosexuality & unicorns, the book weaves them together flawlessly and the experince is unforgetable. That this book has gone out of print is an unjustice.

A very moving book about death and unicorns

A woman finds unicorns near her ranch; they aredying of a mysterious ailment. Along with herranchhand and his daughter and a cousin by marriage who's dying of AIDS, she must find a way to save the unicorns. This truly moving book helped me get through my father's death last year and I truly wish someone would bring it back into print.