Pam Houston\'s How to Talk

Pam Houston's "How to Talk to a Hunter" presents a very interesting perspective, especially for a work of women's literature. Though the story can stand on its own, it is in a collection of short stories, collectively titled Cowboys are My Weakness, which explores the unique attraction women have to bad boys. In fact, the protagonist in all of the stories, ostensibly Houston herself, tells stories where women behave in such self-damaging ways that one would think it would be difficult empathize with them. Yet, time and again, readers find themselves caring about these self-destructive women, and, even sometimes caring about the distant men Houston features in these stories. One of the reasons for this empathy is Houston's engaging writing style, which makes readers feel like they are participating in the story. This style is strongly on display in "How to Talk to a Hunter," where Houston uses a second-person narrative style to relate the story, and while it is very reminiscent of her other fiction, it is unlike the writing of any other contemporary American author.

How to Talk to a Hunter" is titled like an instructional book, and anyone uninitiated with Houston's fiction writing might actually think it is going to be an instructional piece about hunting terms. Moreover, like an instructional piece, the short story addresses the reader personally. In fact, Yaeger, in his discussion of teaching and learning fiction selects "How to Talk to a Hunter" as an example of that type of literature, which often conveys important life lessons. Yaeger believes that "factors such as race, social class, and gender play a very large part in these lessons, as both the methods of the teacher, and the attitudes of the students, vary with one's place in society." (Yaeger, p.1). While "How to Talk to a Hunter" does not actually teacher the reader how to talk to a hunter, it could be properly titled, "How to be Deeply Unsatisfied within a Relationship" and be a very accurate how-to guide.

In fact, it is the overwhelming dissatisfaction that leaps out from the story at the reader. At first, Houston's use of the second person narrative seems calculated to make the reader feel the character's emotions more deeply. However, the more one reads the short story, the more one realizes that the second person narrative is actually a distancing mechanism. While it may allow the reader to feel the story's events more deeply, it allows the narrator to distance herself from the events. She is no longer describing her embarrassing romantic relationship with an emotionally unavailable man, but describing the reader's involvement in such a relationship. Furthermore, she is not describing how she contributed to the unhappiness of the relationship, but how the reader did so. What Houston makes clear is that is no clear-cut story about a dog of a man cheating on a woman, but about how clashing expectations and gender norms can create tremendous dissatisfaction in a relationship.