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tommooney's review against another edition
3.0
Hmmmm. So close. This is a good book, so nearly a great one.
Northern noir that starts as a manhunt through the North York Moors. An old man called Jake, a gun, a quad bike, police and vigilantes on his tail. He's killed a man, so they say. But they can't get near him. He's worked these parts all his life as a farmhand and knows them better than anybody.
Great story, crisp spare prose, glorious setting. I mean, yeah, awesome, sign me up. But after 150 pages, about the time he should be wrapping things up, it turns into something slower and duller that is dragged out way too long (I'll not say what to save from spoilers). Worth a read if you like Cynan Jones, Ben Myers or Daniel Woodrell, but it could have been something special.
Northern noir that starts as a manhunt through the North York Moors. An old man called Jake, a gun, a quad bike, police and vigilantes on his tail. He's killed a man, so they say. But they can't get near him. He's worked these parts all his life as a farmhand and knows them better than anybody.
Great story, crisp spare prose, glorious setting. I mean, yeah, awesome, sign me up. But after 150 pages, about the time he should be wrapping things up, it turns into something slower and duller that is dragged out way too long (I'll not say what to save from spoilers). Worth a read if you like Cynan Jones, Ben Myers or Daniel Woodrell, but it could have been something special.
clmckinney's review against another edition
4.0
This is the story of a man's sudden act that changes the course of his life. I really liked the small town characters. There was a great deal of warmth in them. I enjoyed the unassuming and subtle quality of the narrative. For that it gets a 3.9/5.
terese_utan_h's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lunchpoems's review against another edition
3.0
‘So many dead moments since she moved to Scarborough, junctures bristling with regret and loneliness and boredom and worry. But she looks each moment in the eye and tells herself that pain is part of the process. This is what is costs to be free.’
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.
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The Mating Habits of Stags is a sad, strange book, quite unlike anything I’ve read before (and what a cover!). Ray Robinson wrote a short film called Edith in 2016, the general premise of which became this book - it did extremely well and won a lot of awards, which makes sense because the novel is very visual. It follows Jake, an elderly man who kills another man in a nursing home and goes on the run throughout the northern moors and forests. The narrative constantly switches setting and time, telling the story of why Jake has been motivated to kill a member of the local aristocracy, and what secrets in his marriage to his recently deceased wife Edith he holds on to. What I liked about it is that it has some wonderful descriptions of northern wildlife and landscapes, as well as some truly beautiful writing about grief and loss. What I didn’t like is that the constant narrative shifts often became disorienting and sometimes made little sense. There is a big shift in the narrative focus in the last third of the book which was written well but ultimately didn’t fit very well with the book in its entirety.
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.
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The Mating Habits of Stags is a sad, strange book, quite unlike anything I’ve read before (and what a cover!). Ray Robinson wrote a short film called Edith in 2016, the general premise of which became this book - it did extremely well and won a lot of awards, which makes sense because the novel is very visual. It follows Jake, an elderly man who kills another man in a nursing home and goes on the run throughout the northern moors and forests. The narrative constantly switches setting and time, telling the story of why Jake has been motivated to kill a member of the local aristocracy, and what secrets in his marriage to his recently deceased wife Edith he holds on to. What I liked about it is that it has some wonderful descriptions of northern wildlife and landscapes, as well as some truly beautiful writing about grief and loss. What I didn’t like is that the constant narrative shifts often became disorienting and sometimes made little sense. There is a big shift in the narrative focus in the last third of the book which was written well but ultimately didn’t fit very well with the book in its entirety.
thebobsphere's review
4.0
Once again that weird book symmetry has cropped up. The last book I read was based in the Welsh countryside and featured the more animalistic side of human nature. The Mating Habits of Stags takes place in the Yorkshire farmlands and has people behaving according to their instincts.
Jake is on the run, he has just committed a crime and has escaped into the woods to hide. His only friend Sheila does not want him to stay with her. Why does Jake commit this crime? and more importantly why is Shelia bearing the repercussions of Jake’s actions when she didn’t have anything to do with the felony committed?
I may make this sound like a thriller but The Mating Habits of Stags is not that. This is a book about profound relationships. How the love for a person may affect you? How one can overcome problems and love someone no matter the circumstances. As more clues are revealed in the book we reader’s find out that both characters have made sacrifices in order to love, be it a partner or child. No matter what the circumstances are love prevails.
Robinson’s writing is beautiful, there are passages about nature, which I had to reread, same with Jake’s first dalliances with true love. However the writing also shifts according to the character. When there’s a rough character then the writing shifts a bit into Northern dialect, the more sensitive people have poetic writing.
The Mating Habits of Stags works on all levels. It is a pleasure to read. There are fully formed characters and it examines feelings in a deep and sensitive manner. It is also worth noting that the book started life as a short film before, also written by Ray Robinson and worth watching.
Many thanks to Lightning Books for providing a requested copy of The Mating Habits of Stags in exchange for an honest review.
Jake is on the run, he has just committed a crime and has escaped into the woods to hide. His only friend Sheila does not want him to stay with her. Why does Jake commit this crime? and more importantly why is Shelia bearing the repercussions of Jake’s actions when she didn’t have anything to do with the felony committed?
I may make this sound like a thriller but The Mating Habits of Stags is not that. This is a book about profound relationships. How the love for a person may affect you? How one can overcome problems and love someone no matter the circumstances. As more clues are revealed in the book we reader’s find out that both characters have made sacrifices in order to love, be it a partner or child. No matter what the circumstances are love prevails.
Robinson’s writing is beautiful, there are passages about nature, which I had to reread, same with Jake’s first dalliances with true love. However the writing also shifts according to the character. When there’s a rough character then the writing shifts a bit into Northern dialect, the more sensitive people have poetic writing.
The Mating Habits of Stags works on all levels. It is a pleasure to read. There are fully formed characters and it examines feelings in a deep and sensitive manner. It is also worth noting that the book started life as a short film before, also written by Ray Robinson and worth watching.
Many thanks to Lightning Books for providing a requested copy of The Mating Habits of Stags in exchange for an honest review.
jackielaw's review
5.0
“I love it up here, she said. It’s so wild.
Wild?
A-huh.
There’s nowt wild about it. It’s all man-made.
But it’s nature, you know.
It’s a desert. These hills are nowt but a sheep ranch.”
“These hills should be covered in forest.
She scanned the landscape. I didn’t realise.
Pricks that own the land, swiddening the moor, burning heather off to create new shoots for grouse to feed on. Reason yon dale floods. Peat acts like a sponge but when they burn it, they knacker it. All that damage to folks’ homes and businesses just so some posh southern twats can come up here once a year and shoot some game.”
The Mating Habits of Stags, by Ray Robinson, is set in Yorkshire where the protagonist, septuagenarian Jake Eisner, is on the run from both the police and the son of Charles Monroe – an elderly man he has recently murdered. After a childhood marked by poverty, Jake spent most of his life as a farmhand. He knows the land and how to survive.
Jake is a widower, his beloved wife, Edith, having died a year ago. They raised a son, William, but he too is dead. Jake’s friend, Sheila, cannot understand why Jake would have killed a wealthy landowner who was already in poor health and living in a care home. She does not know their shared history. Jake has talked little about his past. What Sheila does know of him she has gleaned from having been born and raised in the same locality. She would have liked to get to know him better but he often rebuffed her attempts to spend more time together.
The timeline of the story jumps back and forth giving the reader glimpses of lives marked by actions and their consequences – the beauty and pain of living. It is a tale of: desire, grief, love, revenge.
Jake makes his way across woods and moorland, camping out or finding occasional shelter in farms he once worked at. He moves on regularly to evade capture. With winter closing in he turns to those he hopes might offer assistance. He learns that he has become prey.
“Fox hunters: terrier men on quads, pony clubbers in hacking jackets, car horns and bugle calls – those privileged hooligans.”
Sheila is perplexed by Jake’s actions but is distracted by her own worries about her daughter and grandson. Feeling used and taken for granted, she has recently moved away from her home town. When Jake turns up on her doorstep she must make a decision. It is one she will come to regret.
The narrative offers a no nonsense glimpse into the lives of working class families in an area where what wealth exists is in the hands of those who made it from others’ hard graft.
“He eyed the north face of the magnificent Monroe Hall. Such places sickened him with what they represented: generations of downtrodden poor in the factories and mill-towns. Claggy-arsed industry, scab of the North Country.”
Sheila decries her daughter’s work ethic and choice of partners but recognises that her own history is chequered. She has a difficult relationship with her mother. She still has feelings for her second ex-husband – and also for Jake.
The glorious use of language provides a vivid evocation of the landscape.
“A swap of wind scurries through the abandoned mill, a wind made of leaf mould and rusted rabbit wire.”
“The plop and patter of rainwater, a liquid metronome”
The dark beauty of the place and the people who live there are rendered in unsentimental yet emotive detail. As the reasons for Jake’s behaviour are teased out, along with their repercussions, his journey and its outcome inexorably alter Sheila’s future. And yet there is much, it seems, that cannot be changed.
The sparse yet salient prose drops a depth charge into the reader’s sensory responses, the story offering so much more than the actions portrayed. The characters’ flaws are the cracks that enable a flow of empathy and understanding. This is an uncompromising depiction of northern England that I unreservedly recommend.
Wild?
A-huh.
There’s nowt wild about it. It’s all man-made.
But it’s nature, you know.
It’s a desert. These hills are nowt but a sheep ranch.”
“These hills should be covered in forest.
She scanned the landscape. I didn’t realise.
Pricks that own the land, swiddening the moor, burning heather off to create new shoots for grouse to feed on. Reason yon dale floods. Peat acts like a sponge but when they burn it, they knacker it. All that damage to folks’ homes and businesses just so some posh southern twats can come up here once a year and shoot some game.”
The Mating Habits of Stags, by Ray Robinson, is set in Yorkshire where the protagonist, septuagenarian Jake Eisner, is on the run from both the police and the son of Charles Monroe – an elderly man he has recently murdered. After a childhood marked by poverty, Jake spent most of his life as a farmhand. He knows the land and how to survive.
Jake is a widower, his beloved wife, Edith, having died a year ago. They raised a son, William, but he too is dead. Jake’s friend, Sheila, cannot understand why Jake would have killed a wealthy landowner who was already in poor health and living in a care home. She does not know their shared history. Jake has talked little about his past. What Sheila does know of him she has gleaned from having been born and raised in the same locality. She would have liked to get to know him better but he often rebuffed her attempts to spend more time together.
The timeline of the story jumps back and forth giving the reader glimpses of lives marked by actions and their consequences – the beauty and pain of living. It is a tale of: desire, grief, love, revenge.
Jake makes his way across woods and moorland, camping out or finding occasional shelter in farms he once worked at. He moves on regularly to evade capture. With winter closing in he turns to those he hopes might offer assistance. He learns that he has become prey.
“Fox hunters: terrier men on quads, pony clubbers in hacking jackets, car horns and bugle calls – those privileged hooligans.”
Sheila is perplexed by Jake’s actions but is distracted by her own worries about her daughter and grandson. Feeling used and taken for granted, she has recently moved away from her home town. When Jake turns up on her doorstep she must make a decision. It is one she will come to regret.
The narrative offers a no nonsense glimpse into the lives of working class families in an area where what wealth exists is in the hands of those who made it from others’ hard graft.
“He eyed the north face of the magnificent Monroe Hall. Such places sickened him with what they represented: generations of downtrodden poor in the factories and mill-towns. Claggy-arsed industry, scab of the North Country.”
Sheila decries her daughter’s work ethic and choice of partners but recognises that her own history is chequered. She has a difficult relationship with her mother. She still has feelings for her second ex-husband – and also for Jake.
The glorious use of language provides a vivid evocation of the landscape.
“A swap of wind scurries through the abandoned mill, a wind made of leaf mould and rusted rabbit wire.”
“The plop and patter of rainwater, a liquid metronome”
The dark beauty of the place and the people who live there are rendered in unsentimental yet emotive detail. As the reasons for Jake’s behaviour are teased out, along with their repercussions, his journey and its outcome inexorably alter Sheila’s future. And yet there is much, it seems, that cannot be changed.
The sparse yet salient prose drops a depth charge into the reader’s sensory responses, the story offering so much more than the actions portrayed. The characters’ flaws are the cracks that enable a flow of empathy and understanding. This is an uncompromising depiction of northern England that I unreservedly recommend.
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