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“Laird Hunt’s new novel is a beguiling and evocative story about love and loss, duty and deceit. Through the assured voice of his narrator and the subtle beauty of his writing, Neverhome took me on a journey so thoroughly engrossed that there were times the pages seemed to turn themselves.”
— Kevin Powers, New York Times bestselling author of The Yellow Birds
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“Traces the mesmerizing odyssey of a singular woman, who stretches and shimmers from these pages and stakes a piercing claim on our hearts. You won’t soon forget Ash Thompson’s voice or this astonishing novel.”
— Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife
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“Inspired by true stories of
women who fought, this plainspoken story packs firepower.”
— People
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“The novel’s cadence is
deceptively low-key-it lulls, then startles with its power-much like the
miraculous Ash.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine
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“How I felt reading Neverhome: I was marching alongside Ash,
eager for more of her well-guarded secrets….Hunt says he was inspired by the
real-life tale of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, who disguised herself as ‘Lyons
Wakeman’ and enlisted with the Union Army. Ash, however is entirely Hunt’s own
creation. His ability to evoke her demeanor and circumstances in a gorgeously
written sentence or two is one of the book’s many pleasures.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“Rendered in [Ash’s] own words,
this stunning historical novel reveals war—and its happily married narrator in
totally unexpected ways.”
— Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review
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“This trim volume, with its straightforward and earthy narrative, presents readers with a slice of Civil War history. Hunt draws the reader into his novel using his heroine’s clean, clear, and powerful voice and manages to depict moments of life, death, courage, and the small details that make this story real, poignant, and unforgettable.”
— RT Book Reviews (4 stars)
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“A particularly beautiful novel…Hunt brings an especially bittersweet and lyrical tone to this forgotten part of Civil War history…Historical fiction fans will not be disappointed by this wonderful story of Ash’s struggles with her identity and of her personal ties to the war.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
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“A novel that takes us there and back again, ‘there’ being the Civil War and back again, a farm in Indiana…Hunt keeps the pace brisk and inserts some new feminist twists into the genre of the Civil War odyssey.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“A haunting meditation on the complexity of human character, the power of secrets, and the contradictions of the American experience…Hunt’s characterization of Constance transcends simplistic distinctions between male and female, good and bad. The language of her narration is triumphant as well: sometimes blunt, sometimes visionary, and always fascinating.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“An exquisitely wrought vision of the terrible ravages of war—on the land, on the human body, and on the mind—as encountered by a tough, clever woman.”
— Booklist
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“Narrator Mary Stuart Masterson
offers a finely crafted portrait. She makes it clear that where Ash is
intrepid, Bartholomew, her husband, is fearful. She makes it seem natural that
Ash should go to war, leaving Bartholomew to tend the farm…Hunt’s impeccable
research provides insight into society’s historically restrictive gender
attitudes, and Masterson’s performance keeps the energy high and the characters
believable.”
— AudioFile
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Laird Hunt's new novel is a beguiling and evocative story about love and loss, duty and deceit. Through the assured voice of his narrator and the subtle beauty of his writing, Neverhometook me on a journey so thoroughly engrossed that there were times the pages seemed to turn themselves.
— Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
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A spare, beautiful novel, so deeply about America and the language of America that its sentences seem to rise up from the earth itself. Laird Hunt had me under his spell from the first word of Neverhome to the last. Magnificent.
— Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy and Report from the Interior
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The Civil War has given us so many great literary works that I couldn't have imagined a new fictional approach that was both stunningly original and yet utterly natural, even inevitable. But this is just what Laird Hunt brilliantly delivers in his new novel. The key is his central character: in her voice, her personality, her yearning, she deeply touches our shared and enduring humanity. Neverhome is masterful work by one of our finest writers.
— Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain