Laird Hunt

The eerie, disturbing story of one of our perennial fascinations--witchcraft in colonial America--wrapped up in a lyrical novel of psychological suspense. "Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods." In this horror story set in colonial New England, a law-abiding Puritan woman goes missing. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she's been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then everything changes. On a journey that will take her through dark woods full of almost-human wolves, through a deep well wet with the screams of men, and on a living ship made of human bones, our heroine may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a novel of psychological horror and suspense told in Laird Hunt's characteristically lyrical prose style. It is the story of a bewitching, a betrayal, a master huntress and her quarry. It is a story of anger, of evil, of hatred and of redemption. It is the story of a haunting, a story that makes up the bedrock of American mythology, but told in a vivid way you will never forget.

In the House in the Dark of the Woods

Zorrie

I was strong and he was not so it was me went to war to defend the Republic. I stepped across the border out of Indiana into Ohio. Twenty dollars, two salt-pork sandwiches, and I took jerky, biscuits, six old apples, fresh underthings and a blanket too. There was a conflagration to come; I wanted to lend it my spark. Meet Gallant Ash: hero, folk legend and master of war. Ash is a leader of men and a brutal and fearless soldier. Will look you dead in the eye and kill for no reason. But Ash has a secret. Gallant Ash is a woman. This is her story.

Neverhome

Longlisted for the National Book Award From prize-winning, acclaimed author Laird Hunt, a poignant novel about a woman searching for her place in the world and finding it in the daily rhythms of life in rural Indiana. “It was Indiana, it was the dirt she had bloomed up out of, it was who she was, what she felt, how she thought, what she knew.” As a girl, Zorrie Underwood's modest and hardscrabble home county was the only constant in her young life. After losing both her parents to diphtheria, Zorrie moved in with her aunt, whose own death orphaned Zorrie all over again, casting her off into the perilous realities and sublime landscapes of rural, Depression-era Indiana. Drifting west, Zorrie survived on odd jobs, sleeping in barns and under the stars, before finding a position at a radium processing plant. At the end of each day, the girls at her factory glowed from the radioactive material. But when Indiana calls Zorrie home, she finally finds the love and community that have eluded her in the small town of Hillisburg. And yet, even as she tries to build a new life, Zorrie discovers that her trials have only begun. Spanning an entire lifetime, a life convulsed and transformed by the events of the 20th century, Laird Hunt's extraordinary novel offers a profound and intimate portrait of the dreams that propel one tenacious woman onward and the losses that she cannot outrun. Set against a harsh, gorgeous, quintessentially American landscape, this is a deeply empathetic and poetic novel that belongs on a shelf with the classics of Willa Cather, Marilynne Robinson, and Elizabeth Strout.

Float Up, Sing Down

Two women, two secrets: one desperate and extraordinary day. Meet Ottie Lee Henshaw, a startling, challenging beauty in small-town Indiana. Quick of mind, she navigates a stifling marriage, a lecherous boss, and on one day in the summer of 1920, an odyssey across the countryside to witness a dark and fearful celebration. Meet Calla Destry, a young black woman desperate to escape the violence of her town, and to find the lover who has promised her a new life. Every road leads to the bedlam of Marvel, and on it lives will collide and be changed forever. Reminiscent of the works of Louise Erdrich, Edward P. Jones and Marilynn Robinson, THE EVENING ROAD is the story of two remarkable women on the move through an America riven by fear and hatred, and eager to flee the secrets they have left behind.

The Evening Road

"In the center of the county in the center of Indiana in the heart of the country, and down a long, dark hallway," Noah Summers, a simple man who has led a far from simple life, sits before a flickering fire, drifting in and out of sleep. On this dark and lovely winter night, he sifts through the shards of his memories trying to make sense of a lifetime of psychic visions and his family's tumultuous history on an Indiana farmstead. Decades have passed since Noah first fell in love with Opal, a brilliant young woman with a penchant for flames. The couple lives together for forty-two idyllic days before Opal, overcome by her fiery inclinations, is obliged to leave. Noah, whose love never wavers over the long years that follow, finds himself forced to rely on her letters, his memories and the strength of his family to sustain him.

(the Dark and Lovely Portions of the Night) : a Novel

Indiana, Indiana

In the wake of 9/11, Henry, a New Yorker left destitute by circumstance and obsession, is plucked from vagrancy by a shadowy outfit whose primary business is arranging for staged murders of anxiety-ridden clients unhinged by the "events downtown" and seeking to experience - and live through - their own carefully designed assassinations. When Henry joins this nefarious crew he becomes inextricably linked to its ringleader, the mysterious herring connoisseur Mr. Kindt, whose identity can be traced through twists and turns all the way back to the corpse depicted in Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson. Mirrored by a concurrently running story set in a hospital where Henry and Mr. Kindt are patients attended to by a certain Dr. Tulip, the mysteries surrounding Mr. Kindt's past, Henry's fate, and murders both staged and real, begin to unravel in the most extraordinary ways.

A Novel

The Exquisite

Surrealism meets noir in this brilliant, witty, chilling novel of international espionage.

The Impossibly

Tales of the Dark

American Midnight

The book that launched the literary noir movement--in paperback for the first time.

La Benévola

"Innovative, comic, bizarre and beautiful, The Impossibly reads as if Donald Barthelme were channeling Alain Robbe-Grillet, Samuel Beckett, Ben Marcus and reruns of Get Smart."--Time Out New York When the anonymous narrator botches an assignment from the clandestine organization that employs him, everyone in his life becomes a participant in his punishment. In the end, he is called out of retirement for a final assignment: to seek and identify his own assassin. This edition includes an introduction by Percival Everett, an afterword by the author, and a "lost chapter." Called "one of the most talented young writers on the American scene today" by Paul Auster, Laird Hunt is the author of four genre-bending novels and was a finalist for the 2010 PEN Center USA Award. Born in Singapore and educated at Indiana University and the Sorbonne in Paris, Hunt has lived in Tokyo, London, The Hague, New York, and on an Indiana farm. A former press officer at the United Nations and current faculty member at the University of Denver, he now lives in Boulder, Colorado.

A mesmerizing, poignant saga of love and loss firmly grounded in the Midwestern landscape by National Book Award finalist Laird Hunt. On a dark and lovely winter night, Noah Summers sits before a roaring fire, drifting between sleep and recollection, trying to make sense of a lifetime of psychic visions and his family's tumultuous history on an Indiana farmstead. Decades have passed since Noah first fell in love with Opal, a brilliant but unstable young woman whose penchant for flames separated the couple after just forty-two idyllic days of married life. Despite the challenges they each faced, their love never wavered in the long years that followed, sustained by letters, memories, and the bonds of family. Indiana, Indiana established the world that Laird Hunt returned to in his 2021 novel Zorrie, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, and introduced the character of Zorrie Underwood from the perspective of Noah and his father Virgil. Written in a masterful elegiac style reminiscent of William Faulkner and Marilynne Robinson, Indiana, Indiana is a beautiful and surreal story that illuminates the heart of rural America.

Two lost souls searching for meaning in this moving, dreamlike novel of from “one of the most talented young writers on the American scene today” (Paul Auster). Determined to find his place in the world, Harry ventures to a vibrant European city that has roots both in the present and past. There, he is drawn to the boulevard—and especially to Solange, a silent, silver angel awash in Lucite tears and heartbreak. A love story related in the dark, stylish noir of continental cinema and overlaid with a patina of surrealism, this is a novel where friends are also informers, street theater is the lifeblood of culture, and refuge can be found in the belly of a yellow, papier-mâché submarine. As Harry and Solange reckon with seers offering answers to insoluble questions, neighbors who take evening strolls with the dearly departed, critics who control more than artistic fate, and shoes determined to lead their wearers astray, they come to understand the price of survival—and come to a reckoning with their tragic pasts.

Ray of the Star

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE Inaugural winner of the Grand Prix de la Littérature Américaine She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. She is a farmer's faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. NEVERHOME tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause. Laird Hunt's dazzling new novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of stay behind. It is also a mystery story: why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home? In gorgeous prose, Hunt's rebellious young heroine fights her way through history, and back home to her husband, and finally into our hearts.

"A strange, dazzling novel, as audacious as it is lyrical, The Evening Road hauls up insight, sorrow, and even--somehow--wit from the well of American history." - Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room and The Wonder "Illuminates its time better than any staid sepia period piece ever could." -- New York Two women, two secrets: one desperate and extraordinary day. In the high heat of an Indiana summer, news spreads fast. When Marvel, the local county seat, plans to lynch three young black men, word travels faster. It is August, 1930, the height of the Jim Crow era, and the prospect of the spectacle sends shockwaves rumbling through farm country as far as a day's wagon-ride away. Ottie Lee Henshaw, a fiery small-town beauty, sets out with her lecherous boss and brooding husband to join in whatever fun there is to be had. At the opposite end of the road to Marvel, Calla Destry, a young African-American woman determined to escape the violence, leaves home to find the lover who has promised her a new life. As the countryside explodes in frenzied revelry, the road is no place for either. It is populated by wild-eyed demagogues, marauding vigilantes, possessed bloodhounds, and even by the Ku Klux Klan itself. Reminiscent of the works of Louise Erdrich, Edward P. Jones, and Marilynne Robinson, The Evening Road is the story of two remarkable woman on the move through an America riven by fear and hatred, and eager to flee the secrets they have left behind.

Kate Bernheimer

Edward Hopper’s painting "Office at Night" is open to endless interpretation. In this collaborative novella, Kate Bernheimer and Laird Hunt borrow from his practice of improvising on “the facts” of observation to create a work of art, imagining the lives of its characters: stenographer Marge Quinn and her boss, the sometimes painter Abraham Chelikowsky.

Laird Hunt

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