Sharma Shields. (2015). The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac: A Novel. Henry Holt and Co.

Sharma Shields. 2015. The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac: A Novel. Henry Holt and Co.

Sharma Shields, The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac: A Novel. Henry Holt and Co, 2015.

Sharma Shields. The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac: A Novel. Henry Holt and Co, 2015.

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keywords

1. • value: cryptozoology
2. • value: obsession
3. • value: literary fiction
4. • value: Mythology
5. • value: family life
6. • value: American Authors
7. • value: Bigfoot
8. • value: magical realism
9. • value: Washington
10. • value: Women Authors
11. • value: Family Saga
12. • value: fantasy novels
13. • value: fairy tales
14. • value: monsters
15. • value: American Literature
16. • value: Pacific Northwest
17. • value: contemporary literature
18. • value: contemporary novels

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Shields, Sharma
   • bioText: Sharma Shields holds an MFA from the University of Montana. She is the author of the short story collection Favorite Monster, winner of the 2011 Autumn House Fiction Prize, and the novel The Sasquatch Hunters' Almanac, winner of the Washington State Book Award. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, Electric Literature, and more. Shields has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State. She lives in Spokane with her husband and children.
   • name: Sharma Shields

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title

The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac

fullDescription

A dark, fantastical, multi-generational tale about a family whose patriarch is consumed by the hunt for the mythical, elusive sasquatch he encountered in his youth
Eli Roebuck was nine years old when his mother walked off into the woods with "Mr. Krantz," a large, strange, hairy man who may or may not be a sasquatch. What Eli knows for certain is that his mother went willingly, leaving her only son behind. For the rest of his life, Eli is obsessed with the hunt for the bizarre creature his mother chose over him, and we watch it affect every relationship he has in his long life—with his father, with both of his wives, his children, grandchildren, and colleagues. We follow all of the Roebuck family members, witnessing through each of them the painful, isolating effects of Eli's maniacal hunt, and find that each Roebuck is battling a monster of his or her own, sometimes literally. The magical world Shields has created is one of unicorns and lake monsters, ghosts and reincarnations, tricksters and hexes. At times charming, as when young Eli meets the eccentric, extraordinary Mr. Krantz, and downright horrifying at others, The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac is boldly imaginative throughout, and proves to be a devastatingly real portrait of the demons that we as human beings all face.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Entertainment Weekly
   • content:

     "A story that easily qualifies as one of the most wonderfully weird debuts of the new year . . .At heart it's a family saga, and a cautionary tale about frailties--greed, mania, ego, anger--that make us much too human. A-"

2. • premium: False
   • source: Marie Claire
   • content: "Shields's engaging, surreal tale is equal parts David Lynch and Harry and the Hendersons."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Most Anticipated Books of 2015, Entertainment Weekly
   • content: "Magic realism abounds in this coming-of-age story about battling monsters, real and symbolic."
4. • premium: False
   • source: VanityFair.com
   • content: "Spooky and whimsical . . . Roebuck's search for the monster turns into an examination of what is wild--and potentially monstrous--within us all."
5. • premium: False
   • source: The Seattle Times
   • content: "Shields's audacious bundling of so many characters and their accompanying plights into one supernaturally tinged story results in a veritable reading roller coaster -- peaks and valleys of psychological terror, allegorical whimsy, satire and gross-out humor flash by in dizzying turn."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Seattle Magazine
   • content: "[An] expansive new novel...In a style that's darkly comic, spellbinding and at times quite creepy."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Tom Lavoie, Shelf Awareness (starred review)
   • content: "On this clever, absurdist magic-carpet ride of Eli's long-running search for Mr. Krantz (and his mom), Shields introduces a hole with no bottom (where Eli's dog, Mother, is buried), Eli's two wives, his daughters, unicorns that bleed silver blood, lake monsters and more. A lesser writer would lose control of all this, but Shields proves her acuity with a smart narrative, great characters and an ending to die for."
8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 13, 2014
     Shields’s collection of stories, Favorite Monster, playfully demonstrated the full psychological and dramatic potential of the supernatural tale. The same flashes of dark wit are on display in her first novel, which unfortunately doesn’t sustain the haunting energy of its opening scenes set on the Idaho-Washington border. Agnes Roebuck introduces her young son, Eli, to Mr. Krantz, the gigantic, uncouth “hominid” who smells like a “musty bearskin rug singed with a lit match” and for whom she will soon leave her family. The lovers disappear into the woods, leaving only a set of footprints and causing Eli to develop a lifelong obsession with feet big and small. After becoming a successful podiatrist, Eli increasingly devotes more time to hunting Sasquatches (Mr. Krantz in particular) and less to his family, whose members have their own brushes with the supernatural—lake monsters, tentacled shopkeepers, and unicorns. Shields generally deploys these fantastical elements without falling into full-fledged whimsy, but the magical flourishes distract from the central contest between Eli, a man of “nearly hairless pallor,” and his hirsute rival. Moreover, as it lurches from eerie moments of psychological horror to satirical scenes like a nonagenarian attending a “Zoophilia Support Group,” the novel’s tone proves as hard to pin down as the elusive creature at its center.

9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     November 15, 2014
     Obsession, love and monsters combine to create a new set of family values in short story writer Shields' (Favorite Monster, 2012) quirky first novel.Born and raised on the borderline between two states, Idaho and Washington, Eli Roebuck spends the rest of his life, and maybe even beyond, straddling two worlds. Obsessed with tracking down the elusive, hairy hominid-endearingly referred to as Mr. Krantz-who may be the Sasquatch and who wooed his disaffected mother away from her home and son in favor of life in the deep woods, Eli's search colors every relationship and area of his life. Shields' phantasmagoric and episodic tale chronicles Eli's and his family's near encounters with Mr. Krantz and close encounters with less-benign creatures including lake monsters, half-human puppies and bird-women over the course of at least 60 years. The porous border between the worlds of the mundane and the monsters is not as straight as the border between Idaho and Washington, and at times, elements of one almost completely obscure the elements of the other, as when Eli's painstakingly crafted "life-sized" model of Mr. Krantz wreaks havoc upon a small-town parade and terrifies rather than edifies. A sly humor permeates many of Shields' characterizations, but the pathos of the Roebuck-ian search is never obscured by it. A monster who undergoes laser hair treatments in the pursuit of love? Unicorns who bleed silver blood? Ape mothers and tentacled grandmas who complain about work conditions in the afterlife? Shields manages to utilize this mysterious and creepy cast of characters in surprisingly affecting ways to aid Eli on his quest. Imagine a mashup of Moby-Dick and Kakfa's Metamorphosis (with a hearty dash of Twin Peaks thrown in), and you'll begin to get an idea of what Shields' ambitious tale of disenchantment sets out to do.

     COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

10. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      October 15, 2014
      Mythological creatures inhabit the pages of Shields' sparkling first novel, interrupting and interfering with human lives. The most egregious affront occurs when Eli Roebuck is nine years old. Not only does a hairy Sasquatch, Mr. Krantz, come to visit Eli's mother, Agnes, but then she leaves with him, abandoning Eli and sparking his lifelong obsession with the Sasquatch. Though Eli becomes a podiatrist, his interest in cryptozoology gradually takes over his life. He leaves his first wife after her attempt to enchant him using a magical (but extremely smelly) hat goes awry and marries his poet girlfriend, who accompanies him on forays into the woods in search of Mr. Krantz. He neglects his two daughters. The discovery of a large Sasquatch bone caught in a bear trap only intensifies Eli's fixation, and over the years, his quest to find Mr. Krantz morphs into a desire to slay the beast. Eli's quest is not unlike Ahab's, and Shields writes with piercing insight about the monsters that keep us from connecting with one another in this funny and wise first novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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shortDescription

A dark, fantastical, multi-generational tale about a family whose patriarch is consumed by the hunt for the mythical, elusive sasquatch he encountered in his youth
Eli Roebuck was nine years old when his mother walked off into the woods with "Mr. Krantz," a large, strange, hairy man who may or may not be a sasquatch. What Eli knows for certain is that his mother went willingly, leaving her only son behind. For the rest of his life, Eli is obsessed with the hunt for the bizarre creature his mother chose over him, and we watch it affect every relationship he has in his long life—with his father, with both of his wives, his children, grandchildren, and colleagues. We follow all of the Roebuck family members, witnessing through each of them the painful, isolating effects of Eli's maniacal hunt, and find that each Roebuck is battling a monster of his or her own, sometimes literally. The magical world Shields has created is one of unicorns and lake monsters, ghosts...

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1. • code: FIC010000
   • description: Fiction / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
2. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
3. • code: FIC045000
   • description: Fiction / Family Life / General