A novel that challenges our notions about masculinity, identity and the bonds formed through violence.

Three generations of men hunt for deer on Goat Mountain. One hot autumn day, grandfather, son and grandson discover a poacher on their land. The eleven-year-old studies the poacher through the scope of his father's rifle, and pulls the trigger.

Goat Mountain is an intensely powerful novel about how these men, and their boy, deal with the poacher's death, and with his body. In prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, David Vann explores our most primal urges, the ties that bind us, and the consequences of our actions - what we owe for what we've done.

In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy, this is a dark, brutal but magnificent book, the best Vann has written.

Reading group notes available at textpublishing.com.au/resources/reading-group-guides.

David Vann is an internationally bestselling author published in nineteen languages. He is the winner of fourteen prizes and his books (Legend of a Suicide, Caribou Island, Dirt, A Mile Down and Last Day On Earth) have appeared on seventy Best Books lists in a dozen countries. He is a professor at the University of Warwick in England and lives in New Zealand part of the year.