Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys

Aaron Tucker

Coach House Books

Synopsis

‘Cat Person’ meets Station Eleven in this apocalyptic depiction of toxic masculinity.

An unnamed man is spending the evening with his ex-girlfriend. She’s obsessed with the 1956 John Wayne classic The Searchers, and she recounts the story as a way for them to talk about their histories, their families, maybe even their relationship. But as he gets more drunk and belligerent, she gets more and more uncomfortable with him being in her home.

And then, two days later, a mysterious catastrophic event befalls Toronto, and our protagonist must trek across the city to find Melanie. His quest spirals into increasing violence, bloodshed, and hallucinations as he moves west through the confusion and chaos of the city.

Using the tropes of both the Western and the disaster movie, Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys looks at the violence of our contemporary masculinity, and its deep roots in shaping our culture. A suspenseful and thought-provoking evocation of our current moment.

About the Author

Aaron Tucker is the author of the novel Y: Oppenheimer, Horseman of Los Alamos (Coach House Books); three books of poetry: Catalogue d’oiseaux (Book*hug Press), Irresponsible Mediums: The Chess Games of Marcel Duchamp (Book*hug Press), and punchlines (Mansfield Press); and two scholarly cinema studies monographs, Virtual Weaponry: The Militarized Internet in Hollywood War Films and Interfacing with the Internet in Popular Cinema (both published by Palgrave Macmillan).

Read more about Aaron Tucker

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