Open Throat

RON CHARLES, THE WASHINGTON POST

"Give this sinewy prose poem a chance and you'll fall under the spell of a forlorn voice trapped in the hellscape of modern America ... [It's] the purr of a classic perspective in American literature that stretches back to Huckleberry Finn, an outcast naif whose bewildered commentary plumbs our strange behavior, our extravagant passions, our senseless cruelty ... Hoke coughs up these little hairballs of comic misunderstanding throughout Open Throat, but it's the pathos that sustains his novel ... Wisely, Hoke keeps this story short, but it's more than just a series of doleful observations. There is an actual arc to this plot, though it's so fragile I won't say more than that it's sparked by a horrendous crime against a group of people ... Untamed."