Review 117: Cursing the Cougar by Levi Montgomery

Cursing the Cougar
Levi Montgomery
Createspace
ISBN 978-1441462749
223 Page Paperback
$12.95

Cursing the Cougar is two books in one.  Which book you like says a lot about you as a reader.  The first book is a lushly written coming-of age story that crests and falls on the emotions of the characters.  This is the kind of book they don’t write anymore but should, Jane Eyre in blue jeans holding a torque wrench.  The second book-within-a-book is a taut psychological thriller complete with deranged bad-guy and brief glimpses into a warped mind.  While it would be easy to dismiss Cursing the Cougar as lacking in direction, it’s actually in the intersection of these two tales that we realize that life is LIKE that, sometimes evil visits our slowly simmering lives and turns up the heat.

In Cougar, Levi Montgomery introduces us to Tug and his teenage daughter Morgan.  Tug drives a tow truck, but there is much more that lurks below his surface.  Since his wife died (as far as Morgan knows), he has been raising her himself.  Sometimes it’s easy, but now that the teenage years are upon them it’s more… not.  Morgan tries to unravel the mystery of boys while Tug tries to unravel the mystery of teenagers.  Montgomery gives us a glimpse into the world of teens with this lunch room description:

Morgan sits in the lunch room listening to the gabble.  Lauren sits across from her with her latest acquisition, a skinny red-headed boy named Clay.  Or Clayton, maybe.  She didn’t pay that much attention.  He’ll be gone next week.  Next to Lauren is Megan, permanently attached to Guy.  They got themselves surgically joined at the age of fourteen.  Why can’t she find one like that?  Guy’s the perfect other half of Megan, filling in around her like water fills in around rocks.

The neighbor boy is Hector.  I picture him as Carrot-top, gangly and unattractive unless you like gangly.  We know early on that Hector and Morgan are on a collision course with their feelings about each other so I’m not giving away that much by telling you.  They spend a lot of the story pretending they aren’t.  I guarantee you’ll be like me and end up yelling “kiss her already!” at Hector.  And he deserves it, man that kid is dense for a smart kid.

Oh, you’ll wonder what the title of the book means.  It’s about courage, I’ll give that much away.  Specifically, it’s about courage in the face of danger.  Oh, another hint, Tug and Morgan like to bow hunt.  I probably have given away too much, but it won’t detract from your enjoyment of the story to know that.  In fact, that’s one of the nice things about this book.  I could spend three pages telling you quirky little fun facts about the characters and you’d still find many more.  Every page seems to serve up a tasty little morsel to draw us further into the world of Tug and Morgan and Hector and… Annie.  Annie is Hector’s mom and might be Tug’s love interest.  Except she has a dark secret, someone from her past that haunts her present:

Even with the hard drives, the thing was way harder than it should have been.  They went through drive after drive, not finding anything.  He tried to resign himself to the fact that it had been a long shot to begin with, but he just couldn’t stand the thought of her getting away from him like that.  He wants to feel her throat crushing in his hands…

Now I KNOW Levi is going to be annoyed with me for giving away so much.  His carefully crafted prose doesn’t give it away, you have to earn it.  You have to learn and discover and grow with the characters.  I gave you a head start but it’s not going to do you much good, you’re still going to have to earn it.  Cursing the Cougar is well worth the entry fee, it’s just simply a good book.  Well, TWO good books really.  The nice thing is, it doesn’t matter which one you enjoy more because either way you win.

Also from Levi Montgomery is Other Loves which I have also reviewed.