The Dark Dark

February 15, 2017

Named one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 in 2004 and a Bard Fiction Prize winner, Hunt entertained us most recently with last year's Mr. Splitfoot. The stories in her first collection verge on the magical. For instance, a young woman turns into a deer each night, inadvertently cheating on her husband.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2017
In her first collection, Hunt (Mr. Splitfoot) explores various relationships between women and men; the dead and the undead (literally and metaphorically); and lust, longing, and loneliness in 10 stories designed to jolt and beguile. In “Cortés the Killer,” a brother and sister witness the gruesome death of their horse during a Thanksgiving outing to Walmart. It sparks questions about their father’s death from lung cancer. In “Love Machine,” an FBI agent falls in love with the robot he designed to take out Ted Kaczynski. An extramarital tryst between two strangers opens a loophole and brings a seemingly dead dog back to life in “The Yellow.” In “Wampum,” a mother’s ex-boyfriend seduces her precocious 14-year-old daughter, or is it the other way around? In “A Love Story”—one of the fiercest and funniest in the bunch—a pot dealer turned aspiring writer vents her frustrations with married sex life (or lack thereof), complains about raising children in the age of helicopter parenting (her critiques are witty and spot-on), and runs through the lives of women she’s encountered—her “own private Greek chorus”—in the dark before bed. She describes an uncle as being “so good at imagining things he makes the imagined things real.” This excellent, inventive collection does the same; it is rife with observant asides, sly humor, and surprises. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

June 15, 2017

Among the most striking of the stories in this strange and surprising collection from Bard Prize winner Hunt is the opener, "The Story of," about a woman named Norma, newly unemployed and longing to be pregnant, who encounters another Norma, dirty and homeless and possibly the recently discovered half-sister of her husband. The closing story, "The story of of" is another version of the opener, in which the original is repeated, expanded, and modified several more times to dizzying effect. Like the Normas, many of the characters in these pieces are teetering on the edge of sanity. In "The Beast," after discovering a couple of ticks on her body, a woman imagines she turns into a deer when she goes to bed each night. In "Love Machine," an FBI agent sits in an unmarked van watching his comely, potentially lethal female robot pay a call on the Unabomber. VERDICT Admirers of Hunt's Splitfoot will find much to love in the effortless writing, indelible images, and unforgettable stories in this collection. [See Prepub Alert, 1/18/17.]

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
These short stories are works of dark, dark magic that skitter between worlds both recognizable and wholly new.Fans of Hunt's work (Mr. Splitfoot, 2016, etc.) will revel in her first story collection, which marries her signature flare for the fantastic with keen observation and sharp prose. In "Beast," a woman transforms into a deer each night and frets about how her newfound wild side will affect her marriage. The strip mall sadness of rural Pennsylvania pushes the grown siblings in "Cortes the Killer" to make a series of terrible decisions. A woman moves to Florida to escape memories of a miscarriage, but they come flooding back during a hurricane in "The House Began to Pitch." And, in "Love Machine," a lonely FBI agent botches a mission in order to consummate his love for a killer robot. Even when things get strange, Hunt pins language to the page with such precision that you'll never doubt her for a moment. Not even when, in "All Hands," 13 teenage girls get pregnant in an homage to the Founding Fathers--then steal a moment between classes to "[lift] off the ground" like "floating balloons...full of grace." Hunt also has a knack for writing about the particular sadness and anxiety of middle-aged women in suburban and rural America, whether precipitated by motherhood, marriage, or loneliness. As one narrator remarks in "Love Story," "while no one wants to hear about middle-aged female sexual desire, I don't care anymore what no one thinks." Thankfully, Hunt is more than good enough to make you care. Grab your comforter and a flashlight for this tour de force collection from one of our most inventive storytellers.

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