Reader Score
73%
73% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 11 reviews on
A Best Book of the Year: NPR, Vogue, The Huffington Post, The Chicago Review of Books, The National Post, Electric Literature, Kirkus
"Wields such a subtle and alien power . . . Wonderfully spooky." --Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker "A feminist manifesto threaded through imaginative fiction; it's the most evocative, impressive collection I've read this year." --Daniel Johnson, The Paris Review From the acclaimed author of Mr. Splitfoot, Samantha Hunt's first collection of stories, The Dark Dark, blends the literary and the fantastic and brings us characters on the verge--girls turning into women, women turning into deer, people doubling or becoming ghosts, and more Step into The Dark Dark, where an award-winning, acclaimed novelist debuts her first collection of short stories and conjures entire universes in just a few pages--conjures, splits in half, mines for humor, destroys with absurdity, and regenerates. In prose that sparkles and haunts, Samantha Hunt playfully pushes the bounds of the expected and fills every corner with vibrant life, imagining numerous ways in which the weird might poke its way through the mundane. Each of these ten haunting, inventive tales brings us to the brink--of creation, mortality and immortality, infidelity and transformation, technological innovation and historical revision, loneliness and communion, and every kind of love. Laced with lyricism, hope, Hunt's characteristic sly wit, and her unflinching gaze into the ordinary horrors of human existence, The Dark Dark celebrates the mysteries and connections that swirl around us. It's never all the same, Hunt tells us. It changes a tiny bit every time. See for yourself.Winner of the 2019 St. Francis College Literary Prize
A 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Finalist
A 2017 Shirley Jackson Award nominee
An NPR Best Book of 2017
A Vogue Best Book We Read All Year
A Huffington Post Best Fiction Book of 2017
A Kirkus Best Fiction of 2017 pick
A National Post (Canada) Best Book of 2017
A Chicago Review of Books Best Fiction Books of 2017 pick
An Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of 2017
A Paris Review staff pick
A W Magazine Book by Women Writers to Read This Summer
"The Dark Dark . . . wields such a subtle and alien power that I couldn't read more than a couple of pieces in a sitting without feeling like some witchy substance was working its way through my blood . . . Wonderfully spooky." --Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker