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Bearskin: A Novel Hardcover – June 12, 2018
James A McLaughlin (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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WINNER OF THE 2019 EDGAR FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
“Bearskin is visceral, raw, and compelling—filled with sights, smells, and sounds truly observed. It’s a powerful debut and an absolute showcase of exceptional prose. There are very few first novels when I feel compelled to circle brilliant passages, but James McLaughlin’s writing had me doing just that.” —C.J. Box, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Disappeared
Rice Moore is just beginning to think his troubles are behind him. He’s found a job protecting a remote forest preserve in Virginian Appalachia where his main responsibilities include tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s hard work, and totally solitary—perfect to hide away from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, the quiet solitude he’s so desperately sought is suddenly at risk.
More bears are killed on the preserve and Rice’s obsession with catching the poachers escalates, leading to hostile altercations with the locals and attention from both the law and Rice’s employers. Partnering with his predecessor, a scientist who hopes to continue her research on the preserve, Rice puts into motion a plan that could expose the poachers but risks revealing his own whereabouts to the dangerous people he was running from in the first place.
James McLaughlin expertly brings the beauty and danger of Appalachia to life. The result is an elemental, slow burn of a novel—one that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherEcco
- Publication dateJune 12, 2018
- Dimensions6 x 1.13 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062742795
- ISBN-13978-0062742797
- Lexile measure1030L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“One of the year’s most buzzy, fascinating thrillers. . . . A suspenseful, emotionally resonant journey into one man’s dark past.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Gruesomely gorgeous. . . . McLaughlin writes about the natural world with a casual lyricism and un-self-conscious joy. . . . Remarkable. . . . The kind of writing that makes me shiver.” — New York Times Book Review
“Exciting. . . . McLaughlin skillfully breaks down the actions of hunter and hunted into their constituent parts. . . . Some of the best action writing in recent fiction.” — Washington Post
“A powerful and often profound debut. . . . Bearskin constructs a riveting narrative, set within a natural world that, should it vanish, McLaughlin suggests, might take part of us with it.” — USA Today
“Fast-paced and evocative. . . . A genuine page-turner. . . . [Bearskin] emerges from some darker place, a creature of undeniable power.” — New York Journal of Books
“Part thriller, part crime novel, part dreamscape, James A. McLaughlin’s Bearskin refuses to be contained. . . . Smart and sophisticated, with animals both wild and domestic acting as metaphors, [it] is a gritty, down-home tale told with brute force.” — BookPage
“[A] near-perfect first novel. . . . [A] carefully crafted tale of mystery, ecology, backwoods mysticism and downright evil.” — Shelf Awareness
“One of the year’s most buzzy, fascinating thrillers. . . . A suspenseful, emotionally resonant journey into one man’s dark past.” — Entertainment Weekly
“A journey into the wilds of Appalachia. . . . Tightly plotted and beautifully written, Bearskin marks an auspicious debut.” — Nylon Magazine
“Taut as a crossbow and as sharp as an arrowhead. . . . Smoothly orchestrated. . . . A thrilling, thoroughly satisfying debut.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] hard-edged thriller. . . . An intense, visceral debut equal to the best that country noir has to offer.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[A] twisty, knuckle-gnawing thriller. . . . Remarkable. . . . Terrifying.” — Jonathan Segura, Publishers Weekly (Staff Pick—Best of Summer 2018)
“Haunting. . . . Rendered in remarkable prose. . . . [An] edgy tale, with human greed and wildlife exploitation at its heart.” — Booklist
“Explored in vivid and often dreamlike prose. . . . Successfully [straddles] the line between the evocative erudition of Gabriel Tallent’s My Absolute Darling, Tom Franklin’s Poachers, and page-turning suspense of C.J. Box.” — Library Journal
“Bearskin—a gripping tale written in spare, beautiful prose—tells the tale of Rice Moore, a reluctant hero, competent, resilient, and utterly engaging. McLaughlin is a gifted storyteller, and Bearskin is a remarkable debut.” — Scott Smith, NYT Bestselling author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins
“Bearskin is visceral, raw, and compelling—filled with sights, smells, and sounds truly observed. It’s a powerful debut and an absolute showcase of exceptional prose. There are very few first novels when I feel compelled to circle brilliant passages, but James McLaughlin’s writing had me doing just that.” — C.J. Box, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Disappeared
“A secret past, old foes, bloodthirsty locals, and the destruction of the natural world converge in McLaughlin’s debut novel. An intricately written thriller that explores the darkest parts of human nature against the beauty of unspoiled American wilds.” — Ace Atkins, New York Times bestselling author of Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic and The Sinners
“At once brutal and beautiful, Bearskin is a tense, haunting thriller brought to life by McLaughlin’s deft and vivid rendering of the rugged mountain landscape and the beasts that dwell within. A powerful debut.” — Laura McHugh, author of The Weight of Blood and Arrowood
From the Back Cover
Rice Moore is just beginning to think his troubles are behind him. He’s taken a job as a caretaker for a remote forest preserve in Virginia, tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s totally solitary—perfect for hiding from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, his quiet life is upended.
Rice becomes obsessed with catching the poachers before more bears are harmed. He partners with his predecessor, a scientist who hopes to continue her research on the preserve. Together, they descend deep into the Appalachian wilderness to try to stop the bear killings. The undertaking is far more dangerous than they anticipated—they have hostile altercations with the locals, black marketeers, and even the law, and Rice’s carefully constructed anonymity is blown up. His past is catching up to him in terrifying ways and he’s running out of ideas for how to escape it. . . .
James A. McLaughlin mixes gorgeous, hallucinatory prose with an unrelenting, breathless pace in this powerful debut—lush, humane, and utterly transfixing.
About the Author
James A. McLaughlin holds law and MFA degrees from the University of Virginia. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Portland Review, River Teeth, and elsewhere. He grew up in rural Virginia and lives in the Wasatch Range east of Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Product details
- Publisher : Ecco; 1st Edition (June 12, 2018)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062742795
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062742797
- Lexile measure : 1030L
- Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.13 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #659,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6,281 in Small Town & Rural Fiction (Books)
- #35,026 in Suspense Thrillers
- #36,019 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

James A. McLaughlin is the author of Bearskin, published by Ecco/HarperCollins in 2018 and winner of the 2019 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. In May 2018, McLaughlin was named one of 4 Writers to Watch This Summer by the New York Times. Bearskin has been included in Amazon’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2018 and Southern Living’s Best Southern Books of the Year 2018, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a July 2018 Indie Next pick, and a Publishers Weekly Summer Reads staff pick. McLaughlin grew up in the mountains of Virginia and now lives in the mountains of Utah.
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McLaughlin even explores some themes beyond the overt storyline. How men and women react differently to trauma, the dynamics of the hunted turning into the hunter and the thin membrane between civilization and life in nature are all themes on which McLaughlin has something interesting to say.
If one likes good nature writing, lots of action and a well-crafted mystery then Bearskin is certain to please. If anything, it reads like something of an action movie where one willingly suspends disbelief in the likelihood of the plot in order to simply enjoy the experience. In other words, Bearskin makes for something of a High Noon in Appalachia. If this is one’s genre, I recommend this book for those long summer days when one wants to travel in mind to a picturesque place where all it is not as it may seem like the hill country of southwest Virginia.
Granted this is the author’s voice, but it’s Rice’s viewpoint. And granted Rice has some college biology background and probably used a big word now and again in scholastic settings. But he’s a long way from the ivy halls. These days he’s ducking Mexican drug cartel assassins, interacting with barely literate mountain rednecks, and poking around the woods in black-bear country. Not surprisingly the voices sometimes get tangled. Here he is trying to lure a country outlaw biker type away from a biker party in full yeeha swing: “He laughed, trying to sound drunk. ‘There’s some bitch lying in the bushes back here!’” Lying? Really? Why not layin’ **hic** or, better yet, why any verb at all?
Yeah, yeah, I know, picky picky, but it’s a telling example of one of Bearskin’s several weaknesses. Another is the distraction of random dream-states Rice calls “fugues,” which slow the narrative without contributing much if anything to story or character. Too frequently McLaughlin gives us too much thinking, too much telling at the cost of showing, and he makes the all-too common mistake of describing with detail overkill—the kind that can sharpen focus in shorter pieces but clog the gears of a story that’s clipping along quite nicely on its own thank you very much. But blink and you’ll miss him slapping one over the center-field fence that can leave you gasping for breath:
While he watched, a fresh breeze brushed against the big tulip trees, red oaks, sugar maples. Heavy branches rose and fell in slow motion, and a million leaves twisted on their stems, showing silver underneath. The forest was eerily animate, a gigantic green beast dreaming, its skin twitching and rippling. Not quite threatening, but powerful. Watchful.
Or punching a line drive to the gut: “The energy coming off that forest, so close now, thrummed in Rice’s chest, like he was standing next to a pipe organ.”
There’s enough of that kind of writing throughout to seriously tingle any literary sensibility. Loveliness dancing along in a standard page-flipping thriller, high-wire agility for a rookie novelist mixing such yin/yang styles in a single book. We know the Yankees are taking a look, but it’s a sure bet Bearskin can play wit’ da Bums.
For my money McLaughlin’s touched all three thriller bases, and should make it home with a dirty slide and a decent review in Soldiers of Fortune. The basic plot’s simple. We know Rice is trying to hide from Mexican drug lords, so it won’t be long they’ll track him down. Mandatory in such tales—like Chicken Man, the killers are everywhere they’re everywhere. We jump right in at the prologue, where the cartel demonstrates its clout by finagling two hit men into Rice’s prison cell, and then out again, one of them dead and the other with severed Achilles tendons. Leaves us no doubt what Rice is up against now that he’s out of slam and living on a 7,000-acre forest preserve as its lone caretaker.
For us reaching the inevitable showdown will take upward of 300 pages. McLaughlin does this well, doling out the suspense in tantalizing nibble-size increments of pulse-quickening happenstance, flashbacks, fickle fate, and derring-do. Rice meanwhile practices his martial arts, vocal impressions—y’all-- cunning, and chivalry trying to protect the local bear population from illegal hunting and shaking up the local outlaw types to learn who beat and raped blonde, leggy Sara, his predecessor, who checks in on him now and again.
Now comes the kind of detail so important to thriller aficionados: brands and models of everything from clothing labels and pocket knives to security systems, firearms, and accessories, each described with daunting precision—type, caliber, function...you know the drill—personal combat tactics, and, unusual I hope, hideous methods of physical persuasion such as the old icepick in the ear-canal trick. About the time I started wondering how a biology major (albeit ex-con) would know all of this, Mclaughlin gives us a hint: Rice had been “well schooled” by Fernandez, his cartel-connected cellmate, and several Fernandez associates, “all of whom must have recognized something in Rice: a powerful will to survive, a latent capacity for violence, a willingness to kill. Some athletic aptitude. Certainly a good memory, though most of it he’d prefer to forget.” Okay, it’s a stretch. But, good gravy, what’s a thriller without a stretch or two, no?
If I could make one change before turning this better-than-average novel over to a savvy and insightful editor, it would be to switch the voice from third-person to first. This would eliminate inherent confusion when dialects are mingling and pronouns are losing their subjects. As it stands right now, though, Bearskin is a viable Hollywood prospect. It has story, characters, and...ackshun! And good screenwriters are incorrigible tighteners and streamliners.
So who should play Rice? (Cruise? Nope, impossibly tied up) Suzy may be onto something. She’s dispatcher/secretary for the local sheriff and has taken a shine to our tarnished hero: “You look like that actor, Viggo Mortenson? But not in a good way. You know, like in The Road?”
I didn’t like The Road, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle o’ carp.
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