Based on the barest description of The Eden Hunter (Kau is a pygmy tribesman on the run from his slave master in 1816) I would never have picked it up, but I skimmed a good review of it in the New York Times and there was something there (maybe the mention of Horack’s “luminous, clean prose” or the comparison to Cormac McCarthy) that made me read the opening pages on my lunch break. Then I couldn’t put it down.

Kau dreams of finding a silent place in the New World where he can be alone with the jungle to watch over him, but no place is safe for a tiny African man with sharpened teeth in the South at this time. His life as an expert jungle hunter saves him, but so does his kindness, his effort to do good. He takes his time with the people he encounters on his journey and through this Horack gives the reader several fascinating episodes, almost short stories, about these momentary strangers and new friends.

It could have ended up being too much to pack into 300 pages, but this is where Horack’s “clean” prose comes into play perfectly. The author, like Kau himself, never wastes a moment or a motion. This is a great, different read. ~Lillian