Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"Honey in the Horn"
by Harold L. Davis
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1936
• Jesse Owens wins four golds
• Public Works Admin launches large-scale mass transit assistance
• Edward VII abdicates; marries American Mrs. Wallis Simpson
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Oregon man whose jobs included cowboy, deputy sheriff, typesetter, surveyor, and railroad timekeeper. Before publishing novels, wrote manifesto describing short stories about Northwest as “an interminable avalanche of tripe.” Used Guggenheim Fellowship to create debut novel Honey in the Horn while living in Mexico during the Depression.
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– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
Oregon pioneer teen on lam meets girl, finds more trouble.
Prisoner breaks out brandishing gun smuggled into jail by a teenager.
Sassy trove of pioneer tales and descriptions of how pioneers lived/made a living.
A long 380 pages
Consider what happened to a person who acts out, either recently or in the past.
Microscope on, judgement of neighbors, anyone new.
Property holders disrespect wagon campers/itinerants.
Orphaned/abandoned children taken in by community “scholar”/writer who banished own ill-behaved sons.
Native American lifestyles explored. Attitude toward Native American:openly hostile to respectful of skills.
People described by unfortunate physical attributes, some as result of violence or safety lapses. Homeliness OK.
Willingness to feed/help people in need.
Civil War vet recalls killing “fools” on his own side.
Plenty of everyday victuals like deer liver and onions, veggies drenched in butter or oily salt pork, stewed tomatoes with cornbread dumplings, pickled beets, hot biscuits with peach butter, black-cap jam, and wild crabapple jelly. Any issues, bark chittim tree for a physic.
“What solitude had lost them was the habit, not of talking, but of listening.”
Two-room cabin, laid according to land office regulations for homesteaders. Sit on stools made of log rounds and topped with split cedar shakes which are not nailed down. Otherwise, gather outside around the wagon/campfire.
Discuss introductory note: “There is no intention anywhere in the book of offering social criticism or suggesting social reform.” What social reform needed to happen? What reform has really happened?
Talk about bond of those who engage in bad behavior together.
Discuss law enforcement, vigilante justice in novel and today.
What’s the path forward for young adults with traumatic childhoods?
How did the “uncle” who took in orphans treat children, including his own?
Describe different ways Native American tribes lived and worked with each other and how they were viewed and treated by pioneers. Be sure to talk about multicultural coastal tribe.
Discuss why people get ugly with others when they don’t want to look foolish or because of a small issue.
When and why did cooperation and giving happen in the novel?
What was attitude toward violence: between humans, between wild animals, and between humans and wild animals?
Talk about the physical descriptions of people in the novel.
What connections did you make between things that happened to people and what they did later.
Compare interactions of women and men, and younger people and adults, and couples.
Discuss: lonely people talk a lot because they are out of the habit of listening.
Plan a trip with the Travel Guide to Oregon Indian Country created through a partnership between the Tribal Tourism Working Group and Travel Oregon. To do list: find old toll bridge, visit sheep station and jailhouse, horseback riding, fish for salmon, hunt with camera. Alternatively, see slice of 2,000+ mile Oregon Trail. National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center is in Baker City, Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Area is in Shedd in Willamette Valley, Tillamook County Pioneer Museum is, of course, in Tillamook. Florence, on the coast, is home to Siuslaw Pioneer Museum.
No movie adaptation identified.
Honey in the Horn was debut novel of H. L. Davis; other novels include Harp of a Thousand Strings (1947), Beulah Land (1949), Winds of Morning (1952), and The Distant Music (1957). Davis wrote poetry set in Oregon, published short story collection, and wrote movie scripts.