Cute Eats Cute

If Holden Caulfield had grown up in an age of environmental politics he might sound like Cute Eats Cute's 15-year-old narrator. Set in a Midwestern town at the turn of the millennium, Sam's mother embraces Wicca, his dad dials in talk radio, and his eco-warrior friends shift into hyper-drive as the community goes up in arms when deer are slated for culling from a large urban park. Organically wrapped in paradox and irony, Cute Eats Cute explores the many false utopias its characters embrace. Sam discovers the human condition is really about finding out which tribe you're in, and in doing so, learns to navigate the turbulent waters of this so-called life. Cute Eats Cute -- the title taken from a speech Sam's dad makes at his high school defending the urban deer hunt-- encapsulates how animals eat one another for survival and defense. And the food chain never sleeps. The satirical jabs at the men's movement, the deafening but impressionable rhetoric of the gun-toting Christian right group, The Hunters of Men, and the fragile friendship of Sam's school chums (who are each facing down their own personal issues against their blind ecology crusade) all conspire to make Murphy's novel a page-turning delight. But it's not without its carefully constructed messages.