Pity the Beast

By Robin McLean

Book Overview

A brutalized woman is left for dead. But dead is the one thing she isn't. With a stolen horse and rifle, she escapes into the mountains, and a small posse of her tormentors has to gear up and give chase--whether to beg forgiveness or shut her up for good, nobody knows.

With detours through time, space and myth--not to mention into the minds of a pack of philosophical mules--Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas as wide and strange as America itself. It's 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1913505529
• ISBN13: 9781913505523
• Release Date: October 2022
• Publisher: And Other Stories
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Incredible

This book was every bit as challenging as it was rewarding. I heard it described as an "eco-feminist western" so I knew I needed to read it. the narrative was anything but straightforward and sometimes it departs so far from prose that it reads like a folk song or greek chorus. The animals and the earth itself are every bit as important as the human characters. It's not for the faint of heart but it gives your mind and your soul so much to chew on. I know I will be returning to this again and again and I'll figure out something new every time. I feel like there's an endless amount of questions that arise. and normally these things would make for a terrible book - no clarity, a shifty narrator, ambiguous dialogue. Yet it's what makes this one so incredible as a story. I could go on as I feel like there are so many lessons this book strives to teach but I think I've said enough just go read it!