Laird Hunt

This is a tough one. I really admire Laird Hunt. I wish I could write books like his—proportional,
upending, unresolvable, unputdownable. I probably thought more about this book after reading it than almost any other. No, I didn’t think about it, it haunted me. I wanted it to go away. It is sppppoooooooooky when it is spooky but it is also annoying through much of the middle with a kind of goth Alice in Wonderland oopsie daisy quality to the plot that got boring. It was like these moves were needed thematically perhaps but not needed for the narrative. So you can start to feel talked at and then the lecture is in very dark riddles. I think what haunted me is that women seemed to be blamed on some level for the abuse they endure… LH, you are a spinner of nightmares.… (more)

This was a quiet, understated story of an "ordinary life". Zorrie is impossible not to love. Even though she is very much a part of her landscape and very (Midwestern) American, I saw something universal in Zorrie. There is that "something" that the women of her generation often had: grit and resilience, but also a quiet acceptance of things that never came to be.

I enjoyed this novel in a similar manner to [b:Stoner|166997|Stoner|John Williams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320600716l/166997._SY75_.jpg|1559207]. Somehow these books share a lot in my mind. However, even though the writing in Zorrie is mostly good (and sometimes truly great) I found it a bit inconsistent. There were parts I wanted to skip, when it all just got tedious.… (more)

Large moods in a slender frame - the book and its leading character are quietly powerful in their impact and presence. Despite the brevity of Laird Hunt's prose, he writes beautifully and evocatively with a mix of the plain and the metaphoric that give this novella a weight greater than the number of its pages suggest. It's a wistful, melancholic story of Zorrie Underwood's hardworking life in early 20th-Century Indiana, swaying like the tide to and from her past and present, carrying the flotsam and jetsam of the lives of those she has known. It's a tale of loss - of many losses - and the ways in which grief can or cannot be expressed; the ways in which bereavement can or cannot be reconciled.… (more)