A New York Times Editors'' Choice January 2016 Indie Next Pick Named a 2016 Most Anticipated Book in New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Bustle, The Millions, BookPage, National Book Review, BookRiot, Estella''s Revenge, The Week, Refinery "Samantha Hunt''s third novel, MR. SPLITFOOT, will haunt me.I''ve dog-eared so many pages in honor of vivid prose that my advance reader''s copy of MR. SPLITFOOT curls up with fattened corners.the novel moves not just in two time frames, told through two voices, a first-person narrator and a third-, but also.it moves in the fourth dimension, stamping itself upon the reading mind. Hypnotic and glowing, MR. SPLITFOOT insists on its own ghostly presence.
"--Gregory Maguire, New York Times Book Review "The historical and the fantastical entwine like snakes in Samantha Hunt''s fiction.Turned around and around in these woods, you won''t always know where you are, but there''s a rare pleasure in this blend of romance and phantoms."-- Washington Post "The ghosts of industrial America haunt the author''s picaresque third novel alongside the maybe-supernatural kind. Deep in upstate New York, two orphaned teens break free of the shady Love of Christ! foster home and make a business of claiming to channel the dead; years later, one of them, Ruth, turns up mute and gaunt at the home of her pregnant niece and draws her into a mysterious march along the Erie Canal. The two narratives alternate suspensefully, building a world of hidden forces and untethered souls that feels like the dystopia we already live in."--Vulture, "7 Books You Need to Read This January" " Mr. Splitfoot [is] at once an intriguing mystery with clues, suspense, enigmas galore, and an exhilarating, witty, poignant paean to the unexplainable, the unsolvable, the irreducibly mysterious.[Hunt''s] epistemological and ethical rigor are complemented by a lovely respect for what remains uncategorizable, unable to be mastered or explained away.
"-- The Boston Globe "Zombies are out, ghosts are in. [Hunt] taps into the cultural zeitgeist with a new novel blurring the natural and supernatural."-- Wall Street Journal , "Six Books to Curl Up With This Winter" "Hunt mixes her gothic ingredients with great skill, and throws in some quirky contemporary twists for good measure.The result is a riveting, linguistically playful tale about demons (real or imagined), loss, magic and motherhood."-- Financial Times "Hunt''s back with a modern gothic starring a scam-artist orphan who claims to talk to the dead; his sister who ages into a strange, silent woman; and, later, her pregnant niece, who follows her aunt on a trek across New York without exactly knowing why. Also featured: meteorites, a runaway nun, a noseless man, and a healthy dash of humor. Although it''s still too early to speculate on the prize-winning potential of Mr. Splitfoot , Hunt''s fantastical writing is already drawing favorable comparisons to Kelly Link and Aimee Bender, and her elegantly structured novel promises to be the year''s most unusual ghost story.
"--The Millions, "Most Anticipated: The Great 2016 Book Preview" "Mr. Splitfoot is going to be a wild ride. If you''re all about magical realists like Kelly Link, this is one title you''ll need to pick up, because Samantha Hunt''s third novel takes the banal and rockets it into the fantastic (and the fantastically wonderful). I don''t want to divulge too much about this one because I''d rather you read it yourself, but I will say that if you love dual narrative structures or complicated timelines, this is an especially good pick for your must-read list."--Bustle, "17 Of 2016''s Most Anticipated Books To Put On Your Wishlist Immediately" "Spooky and unnerving.Part gothic spine-chiller, part bleak, backwoods road novel, Mr. Splitfoot ranges all over the modern-day Burned-over District.Cora''s journey with Ruth is confounding, rich in backwoods weirdness, spooky and strange and artfully intertwined with the slowly unwinding story of Ruth and Nat''s earlier adventures.
[ Mr. Splitfoot ] exhume[s] the carnival of millenarianism and inter-realm interaction that swept the region two centuries ago, resurrecting it in a tale both strange and terrifying on the same scorched earth where evangelical fire once burned."-- Paste Magazine "Fans of the wondrous and strange will find solace in Samantha Hunt''s haunting novel.Hunt''s narrative drips in magical realism, so you''ll have to roll with the whimsy and supernatural elements, including Nat''s charming ability to communicate with mischievous ghosts."--Refinery 29, "5 Terrific New Books To Read This January" "[A] quirky, mysterious novel.Hunt has conjured an unusual and engaging story.Hunt''s aim is not to be believable, but to play with the unanswerable questions and mysteries that underlie life. The emotional connections between Hunt''s key characters are authentic, as is the unusual world she creates at Love of Christ!, and her writing is lively and funny.
At times it felt like both Cora and I were on a wild goose chase, trailing Ruth wherever she went, but I gladly followed, eager to reach the surprising conclusion of this enigmatic journey."-- The Dallas Morning News "Hunt maintains a dark and disturbing atmosphere throughout this intriguing, well-drawn gothic, creating a terrain that''s familiar and yet alien and unnerving at the same time.If all stories are ghost stories, if our pasts do haunt us, maybe they can save us, too."-- Miami Herald "An American Gothic fever dream.Hunt''s packed prose writhes with hallucinatory detail. At her best, she lurches from lyricism to cynicism in short, declarative sentences."-- Chicago Tribune "The devil unquestionably stalks these pages, but so do more benevolent spirits, and the novel ends, unexpectedly, on a note of uplift and hope. An episodic picaresque that is undeniably strange and often intriguing.
"-- The Globe and Mail " Mr. Splitfoot has the offbeat charm of Scarlett Thomas'' work, while the theme of communing with the dead inevitably brings Hilary Mantel''s Beyond Black and Sarah Waters'' Affinity [.] to mind. Its vision of unexpected love and loyalty remains compelling."-- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "You''ll want to savor every fiendish bit of this book. With her latest novel, Samantha Hunt has delivered a gothic tale that''s both deliciously creepy and emotionally satisfying, combining supernatural intrigue and thematic weight.Hunt''s confidence in her story propels the book from page one, a task made all the more impressive when you consider the murky waters it traverses. Mr.
Splitfoot is about the divide between the natural and the supernatural, between faith and reason, and in the hands of a storyteller like Hunt.the novel becomes something truly special. If you''re a lover of rule-breaking ghost stories, spoiler alert: Mr. Splitfoot is for you."--BookPage "This deeply inventive Gothic story is about two women with a shared past and a mysterious future.Part ghost story, part love story, part modern gothic horror, Mr. Splitfoot is an original, vivid and compelling work of literary fiction.A rewarding journey.
"--BookBrowse "Ethereal.The book deftly straddles the slippery line between fantasy and reality in a story that''s both gripping and wonderfully mystifying.[I]nterconnected chapters builds suspense while keeping readers guessing about what crazy turn might happen next. Hints of what''s in store for readers include a cult of Etherists, a noseless man, a pile of lost money, and a scar-like pattern of meteorite landings. This spellbinder is storytelling at its best. "- Publishers Weekly , starred "A truly fantastic novel in which the blurring of natural and supernatural creates a stirring, visceral conclusion."-- Kirkus Reviews , starred "An entrancing, modern, haunted tale.[ Mr.
Splitfoot ] belongs in the welcome genre of books by new writers who don''t accept the confines of modern literary fiction''s terse and limited geometry, its focus on flawed human relationships and their legacy. Yes, these are humans; yes, there are relationships--beautiful ones, fraught ones; humans with tremendous flaws. (No one but perhaps Flannery O''Connor has pegged the grotesque rage underlying religious fundamentalism this well.) An exuberant writer, Hunt furnishes every millimeter of her story with life, with palpable losses, longing, desire, tenderness, and even the trappings of pop culture. If you''re craving the tangy prose and warm sweep of a really well-wrought novel, you''ll find it here.But it''s the liberties Hunt takes that make this novel levitate into something wholly remarkable and new. She''s such a powerful writer that she naturally reaches beyond the usual canonized frame of what''s real.Delve into this tightly crafted book.
And then: sweet dreams."--Chronogram "The author of the wonderful Tesla novel, The Invention of Everything Else , is back with a contemporary gothic about orphan children who can channel the dead, a mysterious mission, and something hidden in the woods."-- BookRiot,"15 Books Out in 2016 You Should Mark Down Now: Fiction Edition" "Hunt''s enchanting third novel adeptly obscures the line between earthly and the metaphysical. Decades after leaving her fundamentalist foster home, Ruth, now mute, encounters her pregnant niece, Cora. The two women embark on a twisted and otherworldly quest--intensified by Hunt''s lucid imagery--across New York state, wher.