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Coyote Morning: A Novel
One spring morning Alison Lomez watches her daughter, Rachel, wait for the school bus in front of their house when she sees a coyote trot up to the seven-year-old and sit down. This encounter between species is the first of many in Lisa Lenard-Cook's novel of life in Valle Bosque, New Mexico. The village is only a short commute from Albuquerque, but it is home to a healthy population of these adaptable canines as well as a contentious group of humans who disagree vigorously on how to deal with their wild neighbors. Lisa Lenard-Cook introduces us to coyote supporters, coyote haters, and an animal control agent who secretly practices a "catch and release" program. Anyone who lives in the twenty-first-century West will recognize Lenard-Cook's sharp-eyed portrait of the edgy space between farms and suburbs, old timers and newcomers. But her witty send-up of the environmental issues that vex refugees from city life serves as a powerful and serious means of examining the ways human beings cope with life's mysteries and its inevitable dangers. The complex relations between men and women, parents and children, brothers and sisters that make up the daily lives of Lenard-Cook's characters will make readers reflect on their own lives and relationship to wildness.
208 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 4, 2008
Coyote Morning is about this little town in New Mexico and there is a family that has a daughter named Rachel and a mother named Alison. And her parents are devorsed. well one day she was outside waiting for the bus and a coyote came up and sat next to her and she names it Chris after her father. I would recomend this book to people who like acction and emotinal conflict. The one charecter I don't like is Ms. Harold because she wants to destroy the inisent animals.I really like the beginig because Rachel meets the coyote and she acts and treats it like her father so she can fill up that empty space in her life. My favorite chaicter is Rachel because she sees the animal as if it were a actual human being. I think the auther wrote this book because it showed everything had a purpose in life. And you should beable to interacte with each other even if you are different. What kept me reading was everyday somthing would happen being good or bad. The few emotions I felt was happy and sad. My favorite line from the book is "A dog trotted up and sat down next to Rachel, a small yellow dog, that reached to Rachels chest,A dog and a girl watching an empty road that wound dwn from Messa." The conclusion that I had predicted was that Alison and Sherman were going to get maried. But that was not the case at all it ended up that Chris the coyote ran away. And if this novel was to be made into a movie I would put the actors Tim Alon and Jenifer Aniston. I read this book because it brought back a lot of good memories from Washington. Like every day you would see a coyote but in Texas you don’t really see them at all.
April 3, 2023
I enjoyed many elements of “Coyote Morning,” especially the character who makes you shake your head but keeps you turning the page to see how things work out. Bravo to the author for pulling off a sans quotation mark style choice. Not easily done, but it sure lent a brisk readability. And sprinkling in the letters to the editor from the community newspaper heightened the environmental debate without turning the characters into guest lecturers. (The former journalist in me misses letter-to-the-editor banter. Online harrumphing isn’t the same.)
Plus, like many suburbanites these days, I’ve seen an uptick in coyote activity, so this focused novel offered a slice of life that particularly resonated.
A few flaws, but no deal breakers. Some sections went on too long for me. At 196 pages it teetered on novella length and editing might have taken it there, but those slim jims of fiction can be a tricky sell. Perhaps fleshing out the character of Ralph and his wife would have juiced up the local voices and added depth, which I would have welcomed. Overall, it was a nice, thoughtful read, though.
Plus, like many suburbanites these days, I’ve seen an uptick in coyote activity, so this focused novel offered a slice of life that particularly resonated.
A few flaws, but no deal breakers. Some sections went on too long for me. At 196 pages it teetered on novella length and editing might have taken it there, but those slim jims of fiction can be a tricky sell. Perhaps fleshing out the character of Ralph and his wife would have juiced up the local voices and added depth, which I would have welcomed. Overall, it was a nice, thoughtful read, though.
March 12, 2016
Elegant novel using the coyote--a flashpoint wild animal that stirs more emotion than any other except perhaps the wolf, but is certainly more ubiquitous--to explore our ambivalence about living in nature and toward wildlife in general. The New Mexican village of Valle Bosque, just outside of Albuquerque (I think... maybe Santa Fe) is populated by hippies, artists, long-time locals (including some rednecks), Native American wannabes and other new-agers, chicken-raisers, newcomers attracted by the environment and its beauty--that is to say those who romanticize the coyote, those who respect it, those who fear it, and those who hate it. Everyone's views are perhaps a bit simple--even, it seems to me, those of the Native American tribal leader who writes into the local paper (many local views are epitomized in letters to the editor, some thoughtful, some furious, shared throughout the book)--and everyone has quite a lot to learn.
The book is at its best during the actual encounters with coyotes, such as one that opens the book:
"On that Monday morning in April, Alison Lomez watched through her kitchen window as her seven-year-old daughter Rachel shuffled to the end of their gravel driveway, where the school bus would stop for her. At first, Alison thought it was a dog that trotted up and sat down next to Rachel, a small yellow dog that reached to Rachel's chest. Dog and girl watched the empty road that wound down the mesa. _Whose dog?_ Alison thought, and then _what kind? and then, _coyote_. At this, the animal slowly turned its head, and looked Alison squarely in the eye. As Alison watched, Rached bent to say something to the animal before resuming her vigil.
"What Alison would come back to about that morning was the moment when she'd thought _coyote_ and how the coyote had turned, as if it had heard. When the coyote looked at her, her mind decelerated, or so it felt, while her chest constricted around her heart until all that was left was a stone clutched in the center of her that she'd feel forever after."
One of the main characters in the story, a coyote advocate named Natalie, is a newcomer, a former New Yorker (you can imagine how well _that_ goes over with some of the coyote haters) to the village. She thinks of Valle Bosque:
"_Home_ was a word that had meaning here, in a way that Natalie had never understood in the play where she grew up. _Home_ was understanding that people were never alone, that the world was as large as all who lived in it, and that all must live there, together."
The book is full of lovely moments like this. It is Natalie, the coyote lover, who when she begins having her own encounters with the animals, realizes that fear must be a part of respect.
The eery and nearly mystical awareness of the coyote is particularly well captured. I have run into these animals many times myself (and in the Colorado mountains and prairies they are often quite larger. In this book they are described as small German Shepherds, but the ones I have seen are pretty much EXACTLY the size of German Shepherds). Perhaps this awareness is what people find so unsettling about them and why people either love them or hate them.
I highly recommend this book.
The book is at its best during the actual encounters with coyotes, such as one that opens the book:
"On that Monday morning in April, Alison Lomez watched through her kitchen window as her seven-year-old daughter Rachel shuffled to the end of their gravel driveway, where the school bus would stop for her. At first, Alison thought it was a dog that trotted up and sat down next to Rachel, a small yellow dog that reached to Rachel's chest. Dog and girl watched the empty road that wound down the mesa. _Whose dog?_ Alison thought, and then _what kind? and then, _coyote_. At this, the animal slowly turned its head, and looked Alison squarely in the eye. As Alison watched, Rached bent to say something to the animal before resuming her vigil.
"What Alison would come back to about that morning was the moment when she'd thought _coyote_ and how the coyote had turned, as if it had heard. When the coyote looked at her, her mind decelerated, or so it felt, while her chest constricted around her heart until all that was left was a stone clutched in the center of her that she'd feel forever after."
One of the main characters in the story, a coyote advocate named Natalie, is a newcomer, a former New Yorker (you can imagine how well _that_ goes over with some of the coyote haters) to the village. She thinks of Valle Bosque:
"_Home_ was a word that had meaning here, in a way that Natalie had never understood in the play where she grew up. _Home_ was understanding that people were never alone, that the world was as large as all who lived in it, and that all must live there, together."
The book is full of lovely moments like this. It is Natalie, the coyote lover, who when she begins having her own encounters with the animals, realizes that fear must be a part of respect.
The eery and nearly mystical awareness of the coyote is particularly well captured. I have run into these animals many times myself (and in the Colorado mountains and prairies they are often quite larger. In this book they are described as small German Shepherds, but the ones I have seen are pretty much EXACTLY the size of German Shepherds). Perhaps this awareness is what people find so unsettling about them and why people either love them or hate them.
I highly recommend this book.
October 9, 2014
The central narrative in this books is really that of a small and mostly-new western community of acre-sized lots. Some are transplanted from the east, and they relish the coffee-table-book-worthy scenery, the quiet, the space, and the native animals. Some come from an older western tradition that sees "taming" the land as necessary. And some, who grew up in a nearby city, show the conflicts of living in a wilder part of their familiar biome. While the family issues of some of the characters hog most of the space, it is the multifaceted community dialogue that is most interesting.
July 25, 2012
I read this when it came out in 2004 and I was living in New Mexico. I've been trying to remember the name of it for a couple of years now and it just popped into my head today (YAY!). Really an interesting story about the very unique rural-urban hodge-podge of New Mexico.
December 12, 2007
liked it. author most certainly owns a boatload of turquoise jewelery, very southwesty theme.
September 1, 2008
A good, solid novel. Short and to the point, but good character development and local interest.
March 15, 2010
Needed me as an editor. *Sigh* The number of times I've said that, some publisher ought to offer me a job.
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August 11, 2015loved this book!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews