From the Bookshelf of Books Almost Nobody Reads (But Should)…

The Mountain Lion

Jean Stafford

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: May 1, 2020

Discussion: 2020 Reads

Why we're reading this: April 2020 Binge Read
[close] April 2020 Binge Read

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2020 Reads

* OCT/NOV Binge: BARBARA COMYNS
By Lark · 60 posts · 40 views

last updated Feb 03, 2021 11:48PM

* WHO WAS CHANGED AND WHO WAS DEAD by Barbara Comyns
By Lark · 26 posts · 22 views

last updated Oct 29, 2020 11:22AM

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What Members Thought

Apr 01, 2020 Lark Benobi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, my-kind-of-book, ruthless-books, bestial-acts, favorites-20th-century, favorite-book-i-read-this-year

Perfect, but also, perfectly upsetting.

This novel belongs on a very short shelf of novels written for adults that remind us of what a feral and terrifying experience it is to be a child.* I'm very unsettled just now at the power of Stafford's vision. I'm glad I'm not in total agreement with her nihilistic take on family life, because I wouldn't want to live that way. My relative faith in people, when compared with Stafford, doesn't keep me from recognizing this novel as a stunningly artful stor ...more

75 likes · Like · see review

Dec 27, 2022 Robin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022, literary-fiction, american

I knew (even without reading the Author's Note, which contains an apologia of sorts - and major spoiler - for the fate of one of the main characters) that The Mountain Lion would be brutal, right from the beginning.

I think it was the arresting visual I got in the first chapter: two siblings, happily ambling home from school because of nosebleeds, their faces and arms covered in blood. That isn't a sign of good things to come, is it?

Jean Stafford's book is arresting from beginning to end. Its he ...more

53 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2020 Diane Barnes rated it really liked it

Shelves: western-literature

Whoa! I was totally unprepared for that ending! Still processing that, but magnificent prose and powers of description leading up to it. English teachers would have a field day with the symbolism in this novel, and Stafford's ability to get into the mind of children and adolescents is uncanny. This book can be hard to find, but Library of America just issued a volume with 3 of her novels, so I am eagerly anticipating the other 2. Incredible. ...more

29 likes · Like · see review

Apr 05, 2020 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: unrelenting, classics, favorites, nyrb, banrbs-2020-spring-jean-stafford

Sensational writing. A razor-edged, malevolent masterpiece.

7 likes · Like · see review

May 26, 2024 WndyJW rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: coming-of-age-girl, classics, women-authors, indie-press, american-life, coming-of-age-boy, nyrb, natural-world, masculinity, lives-of-children

How do I explain why I loved this classic coming of age story? It's very much a mid-20th century American novel with stellar prose, rugged individualism, man vs nature, and unfortunate stereotyping of boys and girls, men and women, and derogatory slurs for non-Whites.

Molly and Ralph Fawcett, ages 8 and 10 and particularly close when we meet them, divide their time between their family home in Covina, CA with their widowed mother and older sisters, and a Colorado cattle ranch with their mother's ...more

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Feb 20, 2019 Featherbooks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: no-othe-rbook, top-fav, review-of-the-year-2019

The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford is stunning in terms of prose and story in its beautiful evocation of California and Colorado settings, but most memorably in relating the disgust of children for adults. When her brother's lascivious remark passes the line from childhood to adulthood, ("he has literally beat a rivet of hatred into my heart by a remark he passed on the train today") ten-year-old Molly, two years younger than Ralph, despises him and their special bond is broken. Molly is a fanta The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford is stunning in terms of prose and story in its beautiful evocation of California and Colorado settings, but most memorably in relating the disgust of children for adults. When her brother's lascivious remark passes the line from childhood to adulthood, ("he has literally beat a rivet of hatred into my heart by a remark he passed on the train today") ten-year-old Molly, two years younger than Ralph, despises him and their special bond is broken. Molly is a fantastic character supposedly based on Stafford, a writer, a misanthrope filled with hatred for herself and others, witty and mean, and a smart aleck " [Molly}returned her cup to the tea wagon and said, “If you will pardon me, this is the pause in the day’s occupation which is known as the children’s hour.”), who seeks funds from the president for a typewriter and collects hibernating ladybugs to send to the university for scientific explanation.
"Ralph's childhood and his sister's expired at that moment of the train's entrance into the surcharged valley. It was a paradox, for now they would be going into a tunnel with no end, now that they had heard the devil speak."
The landscape descriptions are alive.
"There was a silence. Studebaker and Falcon had calmed down now and were cropping side by side in the middle of the meadow. It was not really silent; there was a steady undercurrent of the noises of the land, bu they were so closely woven together than only a sudden sound, like the short singing of a meadowlark, made you realize that everywhere there was a humming and a rustling. And, then, the separate sound, the song or a splashing in the river, was like a bright daub on a dun fabric."
"They saw the mountain lion standing still with her head up, facing them, her long tail twitching. She was honey-colored all over save for her face which was darker, a sort of yellow -brown. They had a perfect view of her, for the mesa there was bare of anything and the sun illuminated her so clearly that it was as if they saw her close up. She allowed them to look at her for only a few seconds and then she bounded across the place where the columbines grew in summer and disappeared among the trees."
I keep finding the best books already on my shelves. ...more

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