Indiana, Indiana

By Laird Hunt

Book Overview

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 establishes the world Laird Hunt returned to in National Book Award finalist Zorrie and introduces the character of Zorrie Underwood for the first time. 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566896657
• ISBN13: 9781566896658
• Release Date: March 2023
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

a small masterpiece

INDIANA, INDIANA is simply a gorgeous novel. The writing is spare yet lyrical. There are a few Faulknerian moments, but by and large Hunt achieves grace through juxtaposition and empathy rather than through syntactical complexity. There is no confusion, beyond the opening pages, about what is happening, or to whom; a critical plot point--the fate of Noah's wife--is revealed slowly, but the broad outlines are clear from the start.The mystery, if it be mystery, is a man's relationship with land, with loneliness, and above all with time.This is the book that William Maxwell or Wendell Berry would have written had either been a surrealist. The only other contemporary American novel I can think to compare it with is Gene Wolfe's underappreciated PEACE.

Very much like Faulkner

When I began reading this book, my first though was "This is Faulkner." The book has a very sad feel to it--one that radiates from the pages. You can feel the cold from the Indiana winter plains, the pain from loss, yet every so often, you notice you have a smile on your face at the recollections of the past. A quick read, it is worth checking out.