Why read Pity the Beast?

Book cover of Pity the Beast

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Pity the Beast as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Elizabeth Gonzalez James

Author

This book takes place in contemporary America, but it is a Western as much as any of the historical novels on this list. The novel focuses on a horrific crime that happens to a rancher woman named Ginny and her attempts to escape and survive the brutality of her environment.

McLean's prose is as dense and brilliant as William Faulkner's; her imagery is as cruel and unsparing as Cormac McCarthy's. She draws parallels to the violence visited upon humans and animals alike and the desire in many men to dominate the land and all that walk upon it. I'm calling…

From Elizabeth's list on The best new books that shatter the myths of the American West.