Zorrie

Author: Hunt, Laird

Brand: Bloomsbury Publishing

Edition: 1

Binding: Hardcover

Number Of Pages: 176

Release Date: 09-02-2021

Details: About the Author Laird Hunt is the author of eight novels, a collection of stories, and two book-length translations from the French. He has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and won the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction, the Grand Prix de Littrature Amricaine, and Italy’s Bridge prize. His reviews and essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and many others. He teaches in the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University and lives in Providence. Product Description Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award (Fiction)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 Underwoods modest and hardscrabble home county was the only constant in her young life. After losing both her parents, 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 and around 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 Hunts 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. Review A virtuosic portrait of midcentury America itselfphysically stalwart, unerringly generous, hopeful that tragedy can be mitigated through faith in land and neighbor alikeThis is not fiction as literary uproar. This is a refined realism of the sort Flaubert himself championed, storytelling that accrues detail by lean detailHunts prose is galvanized by powerful questions. Who were those forebears who tilled the land for decades, seemingly without complaint? How did they fashion happiness, or manage soaring passions, in their conformist communities? He re-examines the pastoral with ardent precisionWhat Hunt ultimately gives us is a pure and shining book, an America where community becomes a symphony of souls, a sustenance greater than romance or material wealth for those wise enough to join in. – New York Times Book Review”A tender, glowing novel . . . as beautiful as Marilynne Robinsons Gilead or Denis Johnsons Train Dreams.” – Anthony Doerr, Guardian, Best Books of the YearA slim yet profound portrait of the life of an Indiana woman named Zorrie, spanning a humble lifetime shaped by the events of the 20th century. – USA TodayZorrie is a quiet novel about an ordinary life. And when you’re ordinary, you need resilience like Zorrie’s to survive in an uncaring world. Laird Hunt’s short and affecting novel follows Zorrie Underwood’s life from childhood in Depression-era Indiana, when she’s orphaned, to early adulthood, when she’s left on her own, to an eventual marriage and working life. – O Magazines Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novels of 2021Through an ordinary life of hard work and simple pleasures, Zorrie comes to learn the real wonder is life itself. A quiet, beautifully done, and memorable novel. – Library Journal, Starred ReviewThe National Book A

EAN: 9781635575361

Package Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches

Languages: English