Shoot the Buffalo

When nine-year-old Aldous Bohm's parents decide to leave the city and build a new life in the woods near Snoqualmie, Washington, the family dives into a hippie experiment aimed at reinventing the American family. Their makeshift paradise quickly becomes a haze of pot smoke, good intentions, and romantic idealism, spawning deep personal insecurity and a cascade of family tragedies. Narrated by Aldous a decade later, after he leaves Snoqualmie to join the military on the eve of the first Gulf War, the novel traces how the family's turbulent years in the forest shape his adult life. Shoot the Buffalo blends a coming-of-age tale with a stark critique of 1970s counterculture, showing how hopeful pursuits can spiral into destruction.