Genre Fiction
![Laird Hunt - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_laird_hunt.jpg)
Zorrie
Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award (Fiction)
"A virtuosic portrait." –New York Times Book Review
"A tender, glowing novel." –Anthony Doerr, Guardian, "Best Books of the Year"
"Pages that are polished like jewels." –Scott Simon, NPR, "Books We Love"
"Lit from within." -Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, "Best Fiction Books of the Year"
"A touching, tightly woven story from an always impressive author." -Kirkus (starred review), "Best Fiction of the Year"
"Radiates the heat of a beating heart." –Vox
"A poignant, unforgettable novel." –Hernan Diaz
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 Underwood's 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 Hunt's 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.
"A virtuosic portrait." –New York Times Book Review
"A tender, glowing novel." –Anthony Doerr, Guardian, "Best Books of the Year"
"Pages that are polished like jewels." –Scott Simon, NPR, "Books We Love"
"Lit from within." -Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, "Best Fiction Books of the Year"
"A touching, tightly woven story from an always impressive author." -Kirkus (starred review), "Best Fiction of the Year"
"Radiates the heat of a beating heart." –Vox
"A poignant, unforgettable novel." –Hernan Diaz
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 Underwood's 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 Hunt's 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.
Editorial Reviews
"A virtuosic portrait of midcentury America itself--physically stalwart, unerringly generous, hopeful that tragedy can be mitigated through faith in land and neighbor alike . . . This is a refined realism of the sort Flaubert himself championed, storytelling that accrues detail by lean detail . . . Hunt's 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 precision . . . What 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 Robinson's Gilead or Denis Johnson's Train Dreams." ―Anthony Doerr, Guardian, "Best Books of the Year"
"The book feels irradiated itself . . . lit from within." ―Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, "5 Best Fiction Books of the Year"
"The National Book Award finalist of a novel packs a whole, absorbing human life into just 161 pages that are polished like jewels." ―Scott Simon, NPR, "Books We Love"
"A beautiful rumination on finding meaning in our days." ―Tayla Burney, NPR, "Staff Picks"
"A 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 Today
"Zorrie 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 Magazine's Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novels of 2021
"A deceptively simple book about the curious forces that shape a life . . . Hunt's novel reads like poetry, evoking writers like Paul Harding and Marilynne Robinson, and radiates the heat of a beating heart." ―Vox
"Through an ordinary life of hard work and simple pleasures, Zorrie comes to learn...
"A tender, glowing novel . . . as beautiful as Marilynne Robinson's Gilead or Denis Johnson's Train Dreams." ―Anthony Doerr, Guardian, "Best Books of the Year"
"The book feels irradiated itself . . . lit from within." ―Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, "5 Best Fiction Books of the Year"
"The National Book Award finalist of a novel packs a whole, absorbing human life into just 161 pages that are polished like jewels." ―Scott Simon, NPR, "Books We Love"
"A beautiful rumination on finding meaning in our days." ―Tayla Burney, NPR, "Staff Picks"
"A 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 Today
"Zorrie 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 Magazine's Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novels of 2021
"A deceptively simple book about the curious forces that shape a life . . . Hunt's novel reads like poetry, evoking writers like Paul Harding and Marilynne Robinson, and radiates the heat of a beating heart." ―Vox
"Through an ordinary life of hard work and simple pleasures, Zorrie comes to learn...
Readers Top Reviews
KU ReaderDiking77B.
Laird Hunt’s novel, Zorrie, is a book not to be missed. He tells the tale of an ordinary, mundane life with extraordinarily beautiful language. It spoke to me of loss, love, hope and courage in the face of loneliness — all with a lack of self pity. Zorrie is an amazing character (who reminds me of my grandmother); Mr Hunt is a gifted author. Don’t miss this book!
VerbRiver
If Life is the combined marquees of Broadway, “Zorrie” is a small lamp in the rural night. Somewhere between a beautiful eulogy and a biography of the just-missed, it is a story about bits of encouragement, little victories, but ultimately about compensations too often less than enough. Zorrie, early widowed, is strapped to her farm land. Across the years, her life proceeds, neighbor by friend by miniature trip by season and crop. She is alone, treating her blisters but never healing her wounds. She mutes the echoes with hard work and good works, but always mindful she still lives alone in a house on a farm. Long sections of Zorrie’s life skip by to future days with nothing recorded in between. These power the questions of the book, involving and inviting readers to wish they had kept diaries to remind them of their lives. In time, more coldly so for people without family, virtually everyone is forgotten. Yet here is Zorrie, a fiction, more likely than most to not be. Memorable.
Max Tardiveau
This is a gem of a novel: the life story of a woman living in a farm in Indiana, her everyday thoughts, pains and hesitations, her modest adventures, and the people around her. It's beautifully written, with a limpid, vivacious prose, and a simplicity that is like clear water running over your heart. It's a quick read (160 pages), but it doesn't feel like it. I can hardly believe this was written by a man. Thank you, Mr Hunt, for creating this lovely little capsule in my brain.
M Morrison
A character study but offers a dignity, a reverence to common, every day folks living quiet lives. Worth a read.
#EmptyNestReader
This is the story of Zorrie Underwood, a young woman raised in Indiana, who was orphaned at a very young age, then sent to live with a cold, unloving aunt. When her aunt died, Zorrie (21), became homeless. She traveled around, generally walking, occasionally accepting a ride, seeking odd jobs and sleeping in barns and in the woods. She was trying to find her place in life. When Zorrie sees a sign “Hardworking Girls Wanted” at the Radium Dial Company. Here she finds work and becomes life-long friends with 2 young women, Janie and Marie. They were called “ghost girls” by the townsfolk because they glowed in the dark from the radium powder on them. “You are a giver of gifts and a gallant defender and we will love you forever,” they told her. But Zorrie becomes homesick for Indiana soil and feels compelled to return from where she came. With compassion and beauty Hunt tells the story of one woman’s life. The novel spans the duration of Zorrie’s simple life and the factors that shaped it: her dreams, her hard work, her sense of community, her love, her strength and resilience, her losses and her memories. A poignant novel, almost haunting in its simplicity. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Note: If you haven’t yet read The Radium Girls by Kate Moore, you definitely should do so. It explains much of the story of how these “girls” were affected by their work at Radium Dial.
