Hey there. I'm Timbid Armias, and this is NPR's Book of the Day.

Even by L.A. standards, P.22 was a unique celebrity. P.22, of course, being the mountain

line who lived in Los Angeles's Griffith Park for 10 years and made a name for itself by surviving

for so long in an urban environment that wasn't built for it.

That knack for survival and the confusion of trying to understand the human world

are the key ideas propelling Henry Hoke's latest novel, Open Throat.

In this conversation with NPR Scott Simon,

Hoke talks about what it took to write from the perspective of Apuma,

and ultimately, what that

species has to teach ours about living on this planet. Here's Scott Simon. In the U.S.,

national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts,

diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Open Throat by Henry Hoke is a novel that opens with a singularly arresting sentence.

I've never eaten a person, but today I might.

The narrator who tells us that humans cannot make the noises of his name, but his mother gave

him is known by two-legged inhabitants of Los Angeles

as P-22, the Puma. When real life lived in Griffith Park from 2012 to 2022, every day for him

is a struggle to survive the effects of being crowded out of his habitat by floods, earth rumblings,

and human animals.

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