Goat: A Memoir

I am deeply familiar with the concepts of isolation in this book. Small towns in the south have a particular tendency to make anyone who is a little different feel like bottom-feeders. Thinkers, feelers, and liberal personality types are completely looked down upon and ultimately pushed aside. To these critics: I am from the exact town that Brad is from and have met him a few times. I wasn't expecting to like this book, mainly because I get annoyed with stories that ask for pity and don't really reveal anything that wasn't for purely dramatic purposes. This novel wasn't like that. He is sincere and sweet and exactly the same character he is in the novel, perhaps less hopeless and slightly more assured. I just find it interesting that many of you criticize Land about being a little overly sensitive, or writing with too heavy of a heart, or even making decisions that you would not have made. All I have to say to that is that you obviously haven't lived in his shoes. Being from the Northeast or Northwest(where I live now), its pretty ridiculous to think you have any ability to relate to this kind of society. I've lived all over the place and will never forget the complete isolation I felt trying to just get along with people in the area, let alone in an older siblings shadow. And I am just about the most stubborn, self-assured person I know, i don't usually have self-consciousness issues. SO.. This book was fantastic. The tone and so-called over wording was perfectly implemented. His expressions weren't careful or bold, they were sincere. The courage it takes to write this type of memoir by far surpasses anything I've read before. Cheers Brad. You represent Florence well.

There are two levels of amazement with Brad Land's memoir, Goat. In a cautionary tale about peer pressure and the violence between men, Land offers up a bird's eye view of the brutal world of the male culture, specifically within fraternities. The story details a period in Land's life immediately following his savage kidnaping and torture in the back woods of South Carolina. Beaten nearly to death for no reason at all, a teenage Land must piece together his life bit by bit by first overcoming the notoriety of his attack, the apathy of the police, the shunning of the discussion of "the incident" by his parents, and most hurtful: the distancing of his beloved brother Brett. Still, the worst is yet to come for Land. In an effort to "belong," he follows his brother to Clemson University, where he pledges at a fraternity. His brother is member, and with a desire to bridge the gap between them, he suffers an explicit, heart-pounding hazing, bringing him face to face with a violence he knows all to well. A violence that ultimately leads to death. Land's incredibly memorable debut should be required reading for parents and young men alike (particularly in light of a growing number of alcohol related deaths at fraternities). The author's distinct and powerful narrative is sensitive, captivating, urgent, and direct, and revealing of the psychology of isolated and vulnerable teen boys seeking refuge in all-male organizations pumped with testosterone, power, and rage.

I was roommates with Brad Land for a year in 2002, as he was revising an early version of Goat for his thesis in graduate school. He told me of his experiences earlier, but already he was fairly removed from them...nothing prepared me for the beauty and sparseness I found as I read Goat in book form for the first time. I love that he absolutely leaves it up to the reader to pick up any judgement or meaning of the book individually. By paring down and exposing his weaknesses and fears to us, he is showing ultimate courage. By his raw honesty and the honing of his words, he is a bigger person. He has no fear of showing us his unusual connection/love to his brother Brett, while at the same time being unafraid of making Brett human and at times pinpointing his conceited behavior. I look forward to years and years of Brad's writing. He has truly made a huge first step in Goat. I am honored to know him, both as a friend, and moreso as a writer.

I read Goat reluctantly, not wanting to keep going through the awful moments with the author, not wanting to see any more ugliness in the world than I do already, and not wanting to feel that there would never be any easy answer to the questions I encountered here. Yet I couldn't put it down. It doesn't surprise me that other people submitting reviews reject this story--it's a truth too hard to swallow for too many Americans. The violence, and maybe more importantly, the gang mentality of this book are the elephants in the room that no one wants to talk about. It's the truth made into art, and it's a beautiful, haunting, disturbing read. For any thinking person who doesn't seek to see his or her own experience reflected back as if in a self-designed mirror, it's the kind of book that makes you look back on your own comeuppance, and note the various fears and desires that motivated your own behavior, your own life path. It's an essential contribution to the public conversation about where we are as a nation, and how we got here. It's not so much about fraternity as about humanity, and if the exposure that this book gets is centered only on the unfavorable portrait it paints of certain campus organizations, then we are all flightless birds with our heads in the sand.

I thought this was a wonderful, though haunting book. I was a fraternity member at Clemson around the time of this story. The facts are not hard to believe, but that is not what this story is about. Land's description of the years right after high school speaks to anyone who has had trouble figuring out their own darkness. His writing is engaging, his story is interesting, and I think this book is certainly worth reading - it is about far more than "fraternities".