The Bear Went Over the Mountain

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Book:

The Bear Went Over the Mountain

Author: William Kotzwinkle
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Publisher: Doubleday
William Kotzwinkle, the esteemed author of The Fan Man and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, is in top comic form in this outrageous and uproarious parable featring Hal Jam—a big black bear who finds a manuscript under a tree in the Maine woods, dons a suit and a tie, and heads off to the big city to seek his fame and fortune. What follows is a riotous magical romp with the buoyant Hal Jam as he leaves the quiet, nurturing world of the forest for the glittering and corrupt world of humans. New York and Hollywood and all that lies between serve as an expansive palette for Kotzwinkle’s wickedly funny satiric brush. The Bear Went Over the Mountain skewers our age’s obsession with money and fame in a delicious bedtime story for grown-ups.
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You might think that a writer best-known for novelizing the movie “E.T.” would find a satire on the book publishing industry hitting a bit close to home, but William Kotzwinkle seems quite comfortable with the task in this comic fable. In Kotzwinkle’s merry send-up, the author of the hit novel “Desire and Destiny” is a bear, a real bear, who after finding the manuscript under a spruce tree and attaching his nom de plume, Hal Jam, becomes rich and famous overnight. Obtuse editors, star-hound agents, and a right-wing televangelist and Presidential candidate all warm to Hal’s warm, bearish honesty without bothering to read his book—or to notice that he’s an animal, for that matter. It’s an old gag turned by a canny author to amusing, if not always compelling, purposes.

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