In James Brubaker’s new novel, the titular Taxidermist’s Catalog is a long-rumored lost and final LP by folk musician Jim Toop, the sort of album that haunts fans’ existences, like a full-band recording of Springsteen’s Nebraska. The Taxidermist’s Catalog “is, famously, an album that was never properly completed” before Toop, at age 27, wandered into the desert to die — or was murdered, or, if fan sites are to be believed, was abducted by aliens. The “hardline conspiracy theorists” populating fan messageboards scrutinize Toop’s pre-disappearance records for contextual clues to support increasingly odd assertions, with his disappearance in 1977 the only certainty. The online Toop community’s many and sundried conclusions often include a woman named Angela, presumably of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, who is mentioned by name in his early work. A cottage industry emerges as Toop fans descend on the town, where “they go to restaurants and bars, acting all casual as they ask obtusely worded questions about UFO’s and cults and whatever other bullshit they’re interested in” regarding the swirling rumors surrounding the musician’s disappearance, and townspeople, much like those in Cornish, New Hampshire prior to the death of J.D. Salinger, do what they can to keep their secrets secure.
