Mr Splitfoot
Published on 7. July 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-4721-5161-2 (ISBN)
Description
Nat and Ruth are young orphans, living in a crowded foster home run by an eccentric religious fanatic. When a traveling con-man comes knocking, they see their chance to escape and join him on the road, proclaiming they can channel the dead - for a price, of course
Decades later, in a different time and place, Cora is too clever for her office job, too scared of her abysmal lover to cope with her unplanned pregnancy, and she too is looking for a way out. So when her mute Aunt Ruth pays her an unexpected visit, apparently on a mysterious mission, she decides to join her.
Together the two women set out on foot, on a strange and unforgettable odyssey across the state of New York. Where is Ruth taking them? Where has she been? And who - or what - has she hidden in the woods at the end of the road?
Ingenious, infectious, subversive and strange, Mr Splitfoot will take you on a journey you will not regret - and will never forget.
Decades later, in a different time and place, Cora is too clever for her office job, too scared of her abysmal lover to cope with her unplanned pregnancy, and she too is looking for a way out. So when her mute Aunt Ruth pays her an unexpected visit, apparently on a mysterious mission, she decides to join her.
Together the two women set out on foot, on a strange and unforgettable odyssey across the state of New York. Where is Ruth taking them? Where has she been? And who - or what - has she hidden in the woods at the end of the road?
Ingenious, infectious, subversive and strange, Mr Splitfoot will take you on a journey you will not regret - and will never forget.
Reviews / Votes
Mr. Splitfoot is lyrical, echoing, deeply strange, with a quality of sustained hallucination. It is the best book on communicating with the dead since William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley, but it swaps out that novel's cynicism for a more life-affirming sense of uncertainty - Luc Sante, author of Low LifeSamantha Hunt is an exciting find - a fresh original voice...a fantastical love story ... literary gold - Sunday Express
Hunt's writing is free of affectation and carries surprising conviction - the New Yorker
Hunt [is] a writer to watch - Time Out New York
I'm speechless. Samantha Hunt's Mr Splitfoot is so good, so inventive, so new, that I don't think I've read anything like it in years. On the surface it's about false spirituality and the most demented road trip across New York State ever attempted, but it's also about the horrible ties that bind us to one another and the small acts of redemption that make life almost okay. - Gary Shteyngart
Part road trip, part gothic, Mr Splitfoot belongs on the shelf beside The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Samantha Hunt is astonishing. Her every sentence electrifies. Her characters demand our closest attention. Her new book contains everything that I want in a novel. If I could long-distance mesmerize you, dear reader, into picking up this book and buying it and reading it at once, believe me: I would. - Kelly Link
A truly fantastic novel in which the blurring of natural and supernatural creates a stirring, visceral conclusion. - Kirkus Starred review
'This spellbinder is storytelling at its best' - Publishers Weekly, starred
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
271 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4721-5161-2 (9781472151612)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Samantha Hunt was born in 1971 in Pound Ridge, New York. The Seas is her debut novel - it won the National Book Foundation's award for writers under 35 and was voted one of the Top 27 Books of 2004 by the Voice Literary Supplement. She is also the author of The Invention of Everything Else which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2009.
Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Esquire, A Public Space, Cabinet, Tin House, Seed Magazine, New York Magazine, Blind Spot, Harper's Bazaar, and The Believer. Her work has been translated into seven languages.
Samantha Hunt teaches writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Esquire, A Public Space, Cabinet, Tin House, Seed Magazine, New York Magazine, Blind Spot, Harper's Bazaar, and The Believer. Her work has been translated into seven languages.
Samantha Hunt teaches writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.