The Big Hunt epub

The Big Hunt: Yes, This Is a Real Book That Exists and Was Published on Purpose

Congratulations. You found it. A picture book about a group of grown adults who go into the woods to do Big Hunt together. Dave brings his rifle, shaft thick and long. Steve gets on all fours because he is the tracker and that is simply what trackers do outdoors. Lisa has bagged Big Hunt on the last six trips and is frankly better at this than anyone else in the group. They crouch deep in the crevice. They brave the bush. They find a magnificent ten-foot specimen standing tall and proud, and they mount it on the wall of the den. It is a hunting book. The author would like you to know it is a hunting book. He typed that with a completely straight face and no hesitation whatsoever.

This is technically Brad Gosse's most sophisticated work, in that it has an actual plot, multiple named characters, and something loosely resembling a story arc. It is also, objectively, a picture book full of sentences no reasonable adult should read aloud in polite company. Both things are true at the same time. We are not proud of this. The book exists anyway. The deer on the cover looks directly into your soul and it knows what you are about to do with your credit card.

• You heard the words Big Hunt and did not immediately think about deer hunting and you know it
• You want to give someone a gift that makes them briefly question your entire friendship
• You are the person in your group who always goes too far and you have made peace with that
• You need something cheaper than therapy that produces a comparable quantity of chaos

• You are a normal person with normal hobbies and a reasonable sense of what is appropriate
• You manage a homeowners association and have come to think of it as a calling
• You read the words shaft thick and long and genuinely felt absolutely nothing at all
• You have ever used the phrase this is not that kind of establishment in complete seriousness
• You are going to buy this, hate it, and leave a one-star review describing exactly what it is

• Bachelorette parties where the bride specifically deserves to be mildly mortified
• Actual hunting trips with the one person in the group who can genuinely take a joke
• White elephant exchanges where you want to be remembered for entirely the wrong reasons
• Retirement gifts for someone escaping a job they should have left a decade earlier
• Any occasion where you need a gift and poor decisions have led you directly to this page
• Reading aloud at Thanksgiving to the relative who always delivers grace at excessive length

A greeting card costs almost exactly the same as this. You will spend four minutes picking that card out. The person reads it in three seconds and it is in a landfill by Tuesday. This book will be read aloud to the room. Voices will happen. Someone will do Steve on all fours with genuine commitment and zero shame. The mounting scene will cause at least one person to physically leave the room. Lisa's line, I've never seen better, said real slow, will be quoted at completely inappropriate moments for months.

We are not going to tell you this is high art. It is not high art. It is a picture book where adults go Big Hunt together and mount their prize on the wall of the den. Brad Gosse made this deliberately. He would do it again. He already did it again. There are more of these books. They keep happening. Buy this one, give it to someone you love, and let Brad absorb all of the blame. He has accepted this as his legacy and he seems fine with it somehow.