The Hawkline Monster cover art

The Hawkline Monster

A Gothic Western

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The Hawkline Monster

By: Richard Brautigan
Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
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About this listen

The time is 1902. The setting, eastern Oregon. Magic Child, a 15-year-old Native American girl, wanders into the wrong whorehouse looking for the right men. She finds Cameron and Greer, two gunmen taking a timeout from the game after an aborted job in Hawaii. Their violent past doesn't concern Magic Child. She wants them to kill a monster for her, one she says lives in the ice caves under the basement of Miss Hawkline's yellow house, and one she says has killed before.

But the more she tells them about the monster, the more her story unravels, until it isn't clear if the monster is even real, or if anything else is.

Richard Brautigan's classic surrealist novel has inspired for decades with its wild, witty, and bizarre encounters with western-themed psychedelia.

©2016 Richard Brautigan (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Witty

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All stars
Most relevant
I enjoyed this almost despite myself, due to the droll way with words and the narrator's delightfully deadpan presentation.

There is some content re: the age of female characters in here which is unsavoury by today's standards (& to be honest was probably iffy when the book was published in 1974) so I find it helped to remember that at no point is it ever said that the protagonists are "good guys", just very good at what they do

Definitely a tale of the Weird West.

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Great novella. Really dark and funny. As always, twists and turns into madness. Highly recommend

Fantastic

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Really enjoyed this story. If you can get on board with his imagination then this is a good listen.

Surreal & Fun

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A beautiful woman and her twin sister hire two killers to destroy a monster they believe to be living in the ice cellars below the basement of their isolated house on the plains. But when strange things start to happen, they begin to wonder if the monster has already escaped. Unusual and unexpected, bawdy, and at times amusing, it's silly, qwerky fun with lots of sex.
Jonathan McClain's performance brings atmosphere as well as being easy on the ear.

This weird Western is worth a visit and is currently available as a free download with the Audible Plus programme

"Below the basement."

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Unexpectedly hilarious! This book really is 9n a league of its own! Fantastic performance too, really brought the wild words to life!

"Okay...I'm dead now..."

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