Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Release Date: February 9, 2021
Genre: Women's Historical Fiction
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.
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.
My Review 💚
Could it be my obsession with the radium girls? I have read quite a bit about the radium rage, and fallout, quite a bit, the stories of the girls still haunting my mind to this day, but I haven't read much about the women that continued to live a seemingly normal life after working as dial painters. In Zorrie, we get to witness one woman's sad and simple journey, spending her life isolated, yet not alone, a life most likely reflecting the life of many women that grew up in that era, especially if they came from, or lived in, a farming community.
There isn't any extraordinary or even special about Zorrie. It is ingeniously the journey of a woman who simply lived, worked hard, loved, and yet at the same time lived a pretty desolate life, reminiscent in her thoughts, and overwhelmed by her memories and the path she had taken in her lifetime. It is a fable we can all relate to the older we get and leaves enough curiosity about where Zorrie will end up to keep the reader engaged until the end.
The writing itself is sublime and is the perfect length, in my opinion, and incredibly easy to get lost in. A must read that will lead you through the life of a remarkably unremarkable woman.
My Rating: ★★★★★
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hunt grew up in Singapore, San Francisco, The Hague, and London before moving to his grandmother's farm in rural Indiana, where he attended Clinton Central High School. He earned a B.A. from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He also studied French literature at the Sorbonne. Hunt worked in the press office at the United Nations while writing his first novel. He is currently a professor in the Creative Writing program at University of Denver. Hunt lives with his wife, the poet Eleni Sikelianos, in Boulder, Colorado.
*I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from Bloombury Publishing through NetGalley. All views and opinions expressed are completely honest, and my own.
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